


poetry material

by thenavidsonrecord



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst, Canon Asexual Character, Fluff and Angst, Happy Ending, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Mental Health Issues, Mutual Pining, POV Alternating, Rating May Change, Slow Burn, Trust Issues, both jon & martin have had a hard time in life. they'll work thru it, daisy & basira are glassblowers, dumbasses to lovers, jon is a famous actor, martin owns a bookshop, that's the AU
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-13
Updated: 2020-11-28
Packaged: 2021-03-07 19:41:03
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 37,802
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26993080
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thenavidsonrecord/pseuds/thenavidsonrecord
Summary: Jonathan Sims, Academy-Award-nominated actor, accidentally wanders into Blackwood Books in the midst of a panic attack.Unbeknownst to either Jon or Martin, this accidental encounter thrusts them both onto a path that neither could have ever predicted: one of healing, growth, and love of the sort that neither imagined was possible.
Relationships: Background Basira/Daisy, Martin Blackwood/Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist, basira & daisy & jon friendship
Comments: 254
Kudos: 365





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> i’m new here so if this sucks please be kind anyway thanks<3 (also sorry the summary sucks i'll probably change it at some point)
> 
> also i’m a dumb american who knows nothing about the london area or the uhh european continent in general lmao so i moved the setting to america!!! it would’ve cost me time i don’t really have to do any amount of thorough research (i work 6-7 days a week rip), so i made the executive decision to just shift the location to america rather than spend tons of time researching (i’m a chronic perfectionist and would’ve sunk SO MUCH time researching that each chapter would be, like. months apart. trust me on this). also using american lingo because i don’t know any british lingo and don’t want this fic to come off sounding artificial or disingenuous. hope that doesn’t put anyone off!! this is obviously an au anyway and the location really doesn’t matter to the plot of the story :)
> 
> i have a few chapters of this planned already, but i’m not entirely sure of the exact trajectory of this story, so tags will be updated as they become relevant (as well as characters/relationships)!<3 anything potentially triggering will also be noted before the chapter it pertains to. and the rating of this will probably go up eventually ;-)
> 
> ok hope u guys enjoy!

_In a way, you are poetry material; you are full of cloudy subtleties I am willing to spend a lifetime figuring out. Words burst in your essence and you carry their dust in the pores of your ethereal individuality.  
_ \- Franz Kafka, _Letters to Milena_

***

Blackwood Books has been closed for two hours, and Martin is sitting in his office with the door thrown wide open, finalizing the sales ledger and other closing paperwork for the day, when he hears the bright tinkle of bells, signaling that someone has just walked through the front door of the shop. His eyes had been heavy with tiredness, and he felt himself slowly drifting into that realm of disassociation that typically comes with sleep deprivation (the effect of having worked a fourteen-hour shift, plus the two-to-three hours it takes to complete the end of day paperwork, to accommodate for a sudden bout of illness that had seated itself inside of Sasha), but the sound of the bells chirping merrily into the still quiet of the bookshop snapped Martin into sudden alertness. His head whipped up from where it had been steadily drooping against his chest, his eyes widening with alarm, his sleepiness retreating to the back of his mind, to be instead replaced by a rush of startled adrenaline. He had locked up, hadn’t he? He’s sure he had. Even in his current state of slow sleepiness, he’s certain he had remembered to lock up. It’s the first thing—the _very first_ thing—he does when the clock hits eight, every single night, without fail. He’s been known to stay open for late-night shoppers who call in advance, and he’s happy enough to let any lingerers explore the shelves leisurely after closing until they’re ready to check out, but no customers had been in the store tonight at eight, and he’s pretty sure he had locked the front door before ejecting the cash drawers from the check-out registers and flicking the light switches.

Except—oh, _shit_. Martin could smack himself. Tim, who had been working the morning shift with Martin, had come by the store again just after eight, with a coffee for Martin and a barely-concealed grimace that told Martin just how dreadfully exhausted he must have looked. Tim had offered to lock up for him on the way out, but Martin had said no, it was fine, he could do it, he just had to go put the cash in the office first.

And then he had promptly forgotten to go back to the front and lock the doors.

He _knew_ he was forgetting something, too, but his sleep-addled brain hadn’t been able to conjure up what, exactly, it was, so he’d sat himself down and trusted that he had performed the same routine tonight that he performed every other night. Only Tim didn’t bring him coffees every other night, and Martin wasn’t typically this tired every other night, and he really shouldn’t have put so much confidence in his ability to perform simple tasks in his current mindset.

But, then again, who walks into a darkened bookshop at ten o’clock at night? On nights that Martin _does_ remember to lock up, nobody even tries to come inside past closing; of course it would be the single night that he forgets to lock the door that someone walks right in.

He stands up quickly, pushing his chair out from under him, his heartbeat picking up speed just a little. “Hello?” he calls, grabbing his cell phone off his desk and unlocking it to quickly dial _911_. It’s not that he expects whoever the intruder is will be much trouble; robbers don’t typically frequent bookshops, of all places, and he’s positive it’s just a misunderstanding, the intruder simply thinking Blackwood Books is open, or maybe they need to use the bathroom and had tried every door on the street until they found one that opened for them. Still, Martin has a slightly anxious disposition, and he tends to overcaution rather than recklessness. He ventures out of his office, his cell phone clutched in his hand, shutting the door behind him with an audible _click_. “Hello?” he calls again, walking down the rows of shelves, peering down the aisles, looking for any flicker of movement. “Sorry, we’re closed for the night! We open again tomorrow morning at eight, if you—oh. Hello. Are you—goodness, are you _okay_?”

Martin’s alarm is quickly replaced by concern as he takes in the figure curled on the ground, in what is almost a fetal position, his entire body shivering as if he had just wandered in from the cold. This cannot possibly be the case, though, as it is the middle of the summer, and even at night, the temperatures here don’t go much below seventy-five, and that’s if they’re lucky. Martin has the air conditioning in the store jacked way up to justify wearing his favorite fluffy cardigan, but he knows that he’ll have to discard that when he turns the AC off and ventures outside. And he knows that, either way, it’s not _that_ cold in here, and even if it was, this man has not been inside for nearly long enough to elicit a shivering of this nature.

Martin quickly pockets his cell phone and drops to his knees next to the man, unsure of what, exactly, he should be doing. He doesn’t understand what’s _happening_ , so he has no way of knowing how to help.

He tries talking again. “Are you okay? Can you—do you need help? I can call an ambulance, or I can—I don’t know, phone the police? Can you talk to me? I want to help you, but I don’t know what’s wrong.” Martin is babbling, he knows this, but at least if he’s talking, he feels like he’s _doing_ something. His hands flap uselessly at his sides as he continues to stare helplessly at the man. The lights in the bookshop are dim and dark, so he can’t make out any features, beyond being able to tell that his hair is dark and his skin is dark and he’s rather small. Martin wonders if this is a man at all—maybe this is a teenager. Or a kid who’d received a premature growth spurt.

He considers reaching out to touch the—the man, or boy, or whatever his age may be, but the last thing he wants is to make the situation worse. He remembers hearing about how waking a sleepwalker can cause them to become violent to others or themselves, and while Martin doesn’t know if this is actually true or not, the fear of eliciting a similar response from this man is enough of a deterrent for the moment.

“Okay,” Martin says to himself, trying valiantly to ignore the way his voice is pitched slightly higher than is usual in his growing panic. “Okay, this is fine. This is fine. I can just—water. He’ll need water when he comes to. And a blanket.” With this self-imposed initiative, Martin stands, beelining for the break room, where he has a water dispenser and glasses set up for his employees, as well as a thermal blanket tossed over the back of the couch situated in there. He throws the blanket over his shoulder and then grabs a glass, filling it almost to the brim with room temperature water. On a whim, he also picks up a packet of crackers that he thinks Gerry left behind. He stuffs the crackers into the pocket of his cardigan and then rushes as quickly as he can without spilling the water back to the man shivering on the floor.

He’s relieved to see that the man’s shivers have subsided a bit. His breathing is labored but definitely concentrated, a steady _inhale… exhale… inhale… exhale_ , as if he’s consciously trying to get his breathing under control. Martin hadn’t even attempted to locate any other symptoms, so taken aback was he by the intense shivering; he might have been hyperventilating. He could have been foaming at the mouth, or his eyes could have been rolling back in his head, and Martin would have been none the wiser. He wants to smack himself for the second time in less than thirty minutes. He really should pay more attention to these things. The man could have been _dying_ , and then what would he have done?

Martin approaches slowly, the way one would approach a big cat in the wild. He purposefully knocks into one of the bookshelves to get the man’s attention, hoping he is cognizant enough now to actually take notice of Martin. Sure enough, the man turns his head to the side, just enough that Martin gets the impression he’s looking at him, though he still can’t really see his eyes beyond a slight glint of white in the darkness.

“Are you—are you alright? I, um, I brought you some water.” Stupidly, Martin thrusts the glass of water in the man’s general direction without actually getting any closer to him at all. “And, er, some crackers. And a—and a blanket. I didn’t know what you’d need, so I just…” He trails off as the man, very slowly, begins to unfurl himself from his curled-up position on the floor. He lets out a soft groan, barely audible over the roar of the air conditioning. “I’ll, um. I’ll leave these here, yeah?” Martin sets down all the aforementioned items on the ground. “I’ll—I’ll be right back. I need to, um, lock the door. We’re supposed to be closed, but, silly me! I forgot to lock up. Stupid, huh? And I guess I’ll turn on some lights, it’s black as pitch in here, isn’t it?” This isn’t true; the dim emergency lights are on, but they cast hardly enough light to really see by. But Martin tends to say the daftest things when he’s nervous and rambling. Before he can stick his foot even further into his mouth, he quickly backs away from the man, to give him the privacy he needs to get himself composed, and to lock up properly.

When he returns, he’s startled to see the man struggling to his feet. “Hey, whoa! Sit back down, please. You look very unsteady on your feet.” He bends down to grab the water and the pack of crackers and approaches him. “Here, please, take these.”

“I’m fine.” His voice is a little rough, a little shaky, but otherwise Martin thinks he sounds okay. A lot steadier than a few moments ago, that’s for sure. He’s standing fully upright now, leaning back against one of the bookcases for a bit more support.

“Um. No offense, but you just had a—I don’t even know, a panic attack? on the floor of my shop, and I’d really rather make sure you’re alright before sending you off this late at night. What if you fall over into a ditch or something?”

“I assure you,” the man says drily, straightening his spine, pushing himself off the bookcase, lifting his head to meet Martin’s gaze for the first time since entering his store, “that won’t happen.”

“Well, then I’m asking you, as a favor, to please—wait a minute. Hang on. Are you—?” He cuts himself off because it’s simply too ridiculous to be true. Now that the lights are properly on, he’s able to discern features, and. Well. He blinks a few times, slowly, probably looking absurd as he does so. He even rubs his eyes, like a cartoon character would, thinking that his sleep-deprived brain is conjuring hallucinations or something of the sort, although why _this_ hallucination is what his mind would come up with, of everything, he has no explanation for.

The man standing in front of him does not change. He’s the same man—man, _definitely_ man—but Martin’s brain cannot reconcile the person standing in front of him with his little independent bookshop that exists in a city in northern Virginia. It just. It makes _no_ sense.

And yet.

There’s no mistaking it. In all the world, Martin doesn’t think there’s a single person who looks anything at all like Jonathan Sims. He’s heard that there are at least two or three people in the world who look remarkably similar to any singular person, but Martin thinks that can’t be the case with somebody who looks as uniquely _distinct_ as Jonathan Sims. He’s shorter and much thinner than most men in their thirties, his skin a medium shade of brown that makes Martin think of the word _warm_. His features are all sharp angles and hard lines, almost harsh in the way they cut across his face. His dark hair, hanging long and disheveled around his shoulders, is badly in need of a cut and streaked through with silvery-gray. His eyes are hidden away behind a pair of rectangular eyeglasses, but even from behind the glass, Martin can see that strange color that he’s never quite able to distinguish in pictures he’s seen of the man: somehow dark brown, somehow bright green, somehow golden, somehow something entirely _other_ that Martin doesn’t have a name for. He’s not being pretentious or ostentatious with that description, although he knows it must sound that way. It’s just that there’s no other way to describe the color of Jonathan Sims’s eyes.

The man that Martin is nearly positive is Jonathan Sims, Academy-Award-nominated actor, lifts his chin, a bit imperiously, a lot defiantly, as if daring Martin to ask the question on the tip of his tongue.

So he does. Because, really, what else is he to do? “Are you Jonathan Sims?”

His eyes shutter, as if Martin has done the exact wrong thing by asking the question. “I am.”

Martin opens his mouth, then shuts it, then opens it again, then snaps it resolutely shut. The last thing he wants to do is make a fool of himself in front of _Jonathan Sims_.

 _Be practical, Martin_ , he chastises himself within the confines of his mind. _Jonathan Sims or not, he still just had a—panic attack, or_ something _, on the floor of your shop. Treat him the way you would treat anybody else you found like that._

Right. Okay. Good talk. He sucks in a deep breath, and then he takes a couple of steps closer to Jonathan. Jonathan watches him with an almost distrustful expression, like he thinks Martin is going to trick him or trap him or place some sort of dark magic curse on him. Obviously, he does none of those things; he once again thrusts out the water glass and the crackers. “Please. I know you say you won’t fall in a ditch and—and break your neck, or whatever, but imagine if you do. Imagine all the bad press I’ll get. No one will ever want to shop here again. This will be known as The Last Place Jonathan Sims Was Seen Alive. I’d be a suspect.”

Jonathan snorts out something that could have been amusement or derision or something in between. It’s hard to tell. “No such thing as bad press.” There’s a bitter tone to his voice as he says it, and a corner of his mouth is downturned, and Martin thinks there’s something lying beneath the words, but he’s got a faraway look in his eyes, so Martin doesn’t ask. He _wouldn’t_ ask. He’s not going to go prying into the life of world-famous actor Jonathan Sims.

He feels like he’s dreaming. He feels like this is some sort of very vivid lucid dream. It’s surreal and much too strange to be happening to him. To _Martin Blackwood_ , proprietor of Blackwood Books. To plain, ordinary, nothing-special, unremarkable Martin Blackwood.

Telling himself that he’s dreaming, forcing himself to believe it, makes dealing with the situation infinitely easier.

Again, he thrusts the items at Jonathan, and Jonathan, after another few seconds of his distrustful staring, finally relents and grabs the water and the crackers, with a long-suffering sigh. Nonetheless, he drinks the entire glass of water without pause, although he doesn’t open the packet of crackers.

“You’re not leaving until you eat those,” Martin tells him severely, the way his mother used to scold him for not eating all of his dinner, and the thought makes him wince. _You’re not leaving the table until you eat all your greens, Martin_ , said with acidity. _A good son would eat the food his mother cooks for him, even if he doesn’t like it_ , and never mind the fact that Martin is allergic to Brussels sprouts.

But Jonathan doesn’t notice the way Martin reacts to his own words. “Can I at least sit down?”

“Oh. Oh, yeah, of course. Just—there’s a break room. Follow me.”

A few moments later, Jonathan is seated on the couch in the break room, and Martin is sitting in one of the hard chairs, and he’s trying very hard to ignore the fact that he’s sitting in the same room as Jonathan Sims. That Jonathan Sims had come into his shop, shivering like he was freezing to death. That Jonathan Sims is _here_.

It’s unbelievable, in the strangest way possible.

“I apologize,” Jonathan says eventually, in a voice that sounds almost controlled, put-upon. “I didn’t—I needed to get indoors. I didn’t want to do _that_ in public, and your door was the first one I tried that was open.”

“Hmm.” Martin doesn’t really know what else to say. “It’s alright. But are you—you’re okay?”

“I’m fine,” Jonathan says again, clearly not wanting to talk about it. “Although—please, can you not… tell anyone else?”

Martin raises his eyebrows. “That you were here, or that, um… that _that_ happened?”

Jonathan winces. “That that happened.” Finally, he opens the packet of crackers, although Martin has the impression that it’s more so that he has something to do with his hands and less because he’s actually hungry or going to eat.

“Okay.” Martin nods. “I wouldn’t have, anyway. It’s, um, not my business, yeah?”

That mistrustful look is back in Jonathan’s eye, and Martin has _no_ idea what that means, or why it’s there, or why it’s directed so frequently in Martin’s direction. Maybe he’s used to people using him for his fame or his money. Maybe he thinks Martin’s trying to do something like that, although he doesn’t know what he could’ve done thus far to give him that impression. But he nods, anyway, pulling a cracker out of the loud plastic packaging and nibbling on it. “Yeah.”

There’s an awkward silence, then, as Jonathan lapses into quiet, interrupted only by the smallest sound of the cracker crunching between his teeth. Martin has no idea what to say, how to start a conversation with a famous actor, especially one as guarded as Jonathan seems to be, so he opts to say nothing.

Jonathan is the one to break the silence. After he finishes an entire cracker, he says, “You own this place?”

“Yes, mhm. This is my shop. Blackwood Books.”

“You’re Blackwood, I take it?”

“Right again. But you can call me Martin.” Which is an entirely stupid thing to say, as if he and Jonathan are going to be friends. As if Jonathan will have any reason to call Martin _anything_ after this night.

“Martin. Right.” And hearing Jonathan Sims saying _his name_ is nothing if not entirely surreal. Martin has to close his eyes for a moment to ground himself. “Are you okay?”

Martin’s eyes snap back open. “Er. Yes! Fine. I’m fine. I’m just. It’s just. It’s very strange. It’s odd. Sitting across from you. Jonathan Sims. It’s definitely not how I thought I’d be spending my Monday night.” God, he’s babbling again. Always babbling. He presses his lips together, forcing himself to stop.

“I’m sure. This isn’t how I expected to spend my night, either, if that makes you feel any better about the whole thing.”

“Oh. Oh! It’s not—this is no trouble at all. I’m just glad you’re okay.” And then, because Martin is too curious and embarrassing for his own good, “What _were_ you planning to do tonight? I mean. This isn’t exactly Hollywood.”

Jonathan does glare at him now. “I _am_ retired, you know.”

Martin flushes. Actually, he _hadn’t_ known. He hadn’t seen any new Jonathan Sims movies released in a while—years, now that he thinks about it—but actors do that, don’t they? They take hiatuses? Spend some time working on themselves, or on other endeavors, or spending time with family? Martin knows that Jonathan isn’t older than forty, probably isn’t older than thirty-five, and even with a disproportionately wealthy job such as acting, he thinks that thirty-five is extraordinarily young for retirement. “Right. I don’t… I don’t really keep up with, ah, celebrities?”

Jonathan nods. “I have a house not far from here. My retirement home, as it were. But I…” He trails off, then shakes his head, breaking off from whatever train of thought he’d been about to go down. His face visibly closes off, a door slamming shut and locking. Martin wants desperately to know what it is he would have said, had he kept that door open. “Never mind. It’s not important. I got a phone call that put me in a bad state, and then I got lost, and now I’m here.”

“I see,” Martin says, although he doesn’t. Not really. “Was that—not to pry, but was that a panic attack? I just, if it was something worse, or something, erm, undiagnosed? then I think I should take you to a hospital, get you checked out. But if it was just a panic attack, or—or something else, that you know about already, then, you know. It’s fine. I just, I would like to know that you’re okay. Not that it’s my business,” he rushes to add because he feels like it’s important than Jonathan knows he understands boundaries, famous or not, “but, um. Yeah.”

“I’m fine, Martin.”

“Um. Right. Okay.” That’s not an answer, but Martin has a feeling Jonathan knows very well what he’s doing when he chooses his words. “You, um. You live around here?”

Another narrowing of the eyes, another distrustful glance. Martin wants to kick himself.

“Again, not prying! I swear. I’m just trying to make, um, friendly conversation?” God, why does he keep making all of his statements sound like questions? Never in his life has Martin felt so flustered before. He thinks it’s a reasonable situation to find oneself flustered in, but still. _Get a grip, man_. “I mean, it’s a little unusual, I guess? A famous celebrity—or, uh, _ex_ -celebrity, I suppose, hah—to buy a home in Virginia, of all places?”

Jonathan shrugs and starts nibbling on another cracker. “It’s a nice area. It’s quaint. It’s remarkably devoid of other A-listers. People still know me, obviously, but nobody _knows_ me. I don’t think I’ll find anonymity anywhere, not for another decade or so, not until I fade into old age and other younger celebrities take my place, but…” He shrugs again. “It’s not as bad here as it would be in a place like Hollywood. Or New York.”

Martin nods. And then, for absolutely no reason at all, he feels a little sad. For Jonathan Sims, who evidently wants anonymity so badly, who knows that he will likely never really receive it for the rest of his life. “That makes sense.”

Another awkward silence, and then, after Jonathan finishes his second cracker, he sets the rest of the packet aside and stands up decisively. “Well, this has been very pleasant, Martin, but I’m afraid I must go.”

“Yeah. Right. Um.” Martin stands as well, rubbing the back of his neck with a nervous hand. “Do you—you said you were lost. Do you know where you are now? Or…?”

A pensive look comes over Jonathan’s face, as if he’s giving the question serious thought. “What street is this?”

“Jordan Street.”

Jonathan repeats the name to himself under his breath, as if trying to recall it. Eventually, he gives it up. “How far is the Juniper from here?”

Martin’s eyes widen, before he remembers who it is he’s talking to. “The restaurant?” The Juniper is notorious for being one of the most expensive restaurants in the entire state of Virginia. It’s indigenously-owned, and all of the food are traditional indigenous dishes with modern and upscale twists, and it’s ridiculously expensive. Martin likes to support businesses owned by people of color as much as the next politically-enlightened person, but he also has a budget that doesn’t have room for a restaurant like the Juniper. He’s always been curious about it, especially since he passes it to get home from the bookstore, but he’s never even dreamed of actually getting the chance to eat there.

Of course Jonathan Sims eats there. Of course he does.

“Yes, the restaurant,” Jonathan says, in a slightly haughty tone that Martin does not care for at all, as if he knows exactly what Martin is thinking.

“You walked all the way here from the Juniper?”

“I needed some fresh air.”

Martin blinks at him, quizzically. “That’s got to be at least three miles away.”

Jonathan sniffs. “So?”

“ _So_? It must’ve taken you an hour to get here, at least!”

“And it’ll take me an hour to get back, so if you would please tell me the quickest route.”

“What—no! Absolutely not. It’s—what, it’s going on eleven now, it’ll be midnight by the time you get back, and, no offense, but you don’t exactly cut an impressive image. You’ll get _mugged_ or something, and it’ll be my fault!”

Jonathan rubbed at his temples, as if Martin is giving him a headache with his protestations. “Please refrain from continuing to regard any ill fortune that may or may not befall me as your fault, Martin. You didn’t even know me an hour ago. You’re being extremely self-important.”

Martin’s mouth snaps shut at that. He has a point, he supposes, but it’s still not something that’s particularly nice to hear. At least not the way that he phrased it. Martin tries to conceal the way the words sting. “Well. Regardless. Let me drive you. It’s only a few minutes up the road, and I pass it on my way home, anyway.”

“I’ve already inconvenienced you enough—”

“Nonsense. What would really inconvenience me is sitting up all night when all I want to do is sleep, waiting to hear that Jonathan Sims has been stabbed to death in the streets. I’ll worry myself sick.”

“You’re being ridiculous.”

“I don’t care. Please, just let me drive you to the Juniper. Then you’ll never have to deal with me again.”

Jonathan narrows his eyes and presses his lips together, like he wants to say something, to be contrary, but he doesn’t. He just heaves another one of those long-suffering sighs and says, “Fine.”

“ _Thank_ you,” Martin says. “Just let me—I have to finish up some paperwork. It won’t take long, maybe ten minutes? Then we can go.”

Martin resolutely doesn’t think about the fact that _we_ , in that sentence, means _Martin Blackwood and Jonathan Sims, together_. It’s entirely too absurd to think.

But he can’t wait to tell Sasha what happened to him, during the shift that she was meant to work.

***

Martin feels embarrassed as he leads Jonathan Sims, Academy-Award-nominated actor, to his 2014 Nissan Sentra.

It’s not a _bad_ car. It’s sensible; it’s economical. And, hell, six years isn’t _that_ old. But it’s probably so far out of the realm of the car that Jonathan drives, or cars that he’s used to being driven in. The tires are old and have terrible traction, which he’ll definitely need to replace before the winter snows, and there are considerable dents in the hood and the passenger side door, where the car had gotten into an accident before he’d bought it.

“Sorry it’s, erm, sort of messy,” Martin says as Jonathan slides into the passenger seat. There are takeout receipts strewn across the floor of the passenger seat, as well as an umbrella, an extra pair of shoes (Martin doesn’t even know _why_ he has those in his car), an old poetry notebook that he really should have thrown away a long time ago, a couple of books he’s recently bought and keeps forgetting to bring inside, and old air fresheners. At least there’s no takeout garbage in the car; that had been a bad habit of his, before both Gerry and Sasha had made their disgust at his treating his car like a trashcan apparent. Now the only trash he keeps in his car are the receipts, which he somehow always manages to toss on the floor instead of in the takeaway bag. “If I had known Jonathan Sims was going to need a ride tonight, I would’ve cleaned it up a bit. You can just—you can shove that stuff out of your way. Or throw it in the back. None of it’s important.”

“Well, first of all, I didn’t _need_ a ride,” Jonathan says, moving some of the stuff on the ground to the side so that he has a clear floor space to place his feet. “And can you please stop saying my name like that?”

“Huh? Like what?” Martin asks as he reverses the car out of the store’s parking lot and navigates them onto the main road. Despite his nerves, he’s still able to drive in a straight line, which he considers a win.

“Like… like I’m a different species of person.” In his peripheral, Martin can see Jonathan dragging a hand through his already-unruly hair. “I’m just a person. Same as you.”

Martin snorts. “Hardly. You’re one of the most well-known people in the whole world, probably.”

“This is what’s wrong with the world,” Jonathan says, frigidly. “You all put celebrities—actors, musicians, whatever—up on these very high pedestals, you have this whole culture around following celebrities and keeping up with celebrities and knowing what celebrities ate for lunch, and it gets to the point that you start to treat us as if we’re not _people_. We’re animals in a zoo, for the entertainment of the masses. Even our private lives aren’t kept private—you all are privy to our every sex scandal, our every romantic entanglement, all of our family drama. Yes, some of us enjoy that attention, but not nearly as many of us as you probably think. And, sure, we’re paid well, but how can you put a price on privacy? On personal boundaries? On treating us like we’re human?” He lets out an annoyed huff. Martin glances over, sees him crossing his arms over his chest. “I don’t like to be glorified, or objectified, or—or _worshipped_. I like to be treated the same way that a—that the proprietor of a bookstore would want to be treated.”

Martin makes a little humming noise, considering Jonathan’s words. Martin, for one, doesn’t pay much attention to the celebrity culture that he knows Jonathan is speaking to: he doesn’t care about the personal or romantic lives of celebrities, doesn’t care who’s fucking who; he doesn’t watch those ridiculous reality television shows that document a celebrity’s life. Hell, he doesn’t even watch interview shows, if he can help it. It’s just not something he’s interested in, and he _does_ think that everyone, celebrities included, are entitled to their privacy. But he also thinks that Jonathan’s complaints are inherently very privileged ones. He thinks there’s a definite difference between Martin wanting to be treated well because he thinks it’s basic human decency, versus Jonathan wanting to be treated like a non-famous person because he’s tired of the idolatry.

Martin turns on his right turn blinker. “Well, I don’t keep up with celebrity gossip or anything like that, but I don’t remember ever seeing any scandalous articles about you. Even when you were being nominated for awards left and right.”

“Yes, well. I have a very good manager.” There’s a strange tightness to Jonathan’s voice, but his face, when Martin glances over, gives away nothing.

“You must,” Martin remarks as he fiddles with the air conditioning buttons. In all of the nervous chaos of the night, he’d forgotten to take off his now too-warm cardigan before leaving the store, and he definitely does not want to start smelling of bad body odor next to Jonathan Sims. “Just a glance at your filmography proves that, huh?”

“Quite.”

They don’t speak for the rest of the drive, and Martin sits on the fact that he thinks he must have said something wrong. There’s a weird tension in the car that becomes thicker the longer they stew in it, to the point that Martin’s almost tempted to roll down a window just to get some fresh air circulating. But, looking back at their conversation, he can’t imagine what he possibly could have said that would put Jonathan off.

Jonathan, Martin is quickly discovering, is prickly at best, and trying to decide which specific conversational topics are difficult or off-limits for Jonathan is a lot like trying to walk through a minefield: one wrong step, no matter how careful or well-intentioned, could see a bomb exploding in your face.

Martin decides that it’s probably for the best that he’ll never have to see Jonathan again, after tonight. As much as the man fascinates him, as much as he’d like to know all the little facets that combine to make up Jonathan Sims, he also thinks that Jonathan seems like a difficult piece of work, and one that Martin shouldn’t be stupid enough to pursue. He has had enough bad experience pursuing people he should have been smart enough to avoid altogether; he’d prefer not to add another name to that (admittedly rather short, but effective) list.

He’s almost relieved when he pulls into the Juniper’s parking lot. “And here we are. Do you want me to drop you somewhere specific?”

“No, this is fine,” Jonathan says, already opening the door of the car and positioning himself to leave. “Thank you for your kindness tonight. And I would very much appreciate your discretion.”

Martin pantomimes zipping his lips shut, which is stupid and childish, but it makes one of the corners of Jonathan’s mouth tilt upwards, just a little, which is entirely rewarding to Martin, a small warmth blooming across his chest.

“And, Martin?” he asks, standing fully outside Martin’s car now, leaning down so that he can speak through the open door.

“Hmm?”

“It’s Jon.”

“Oh.” Martin nods, slowly, a smile fighting its way onto his face entirely against his will. “Oh, okay. Jon.”

“Drive safe.” And then he shuts the door, and then he’s gone. Martin (erroneously) assumes that this is the last time he’ll ever see Jonathan Sims ( _Jon_ , he corrects himself internally, _he wants me to call him Jon_ ), and though he had been okay with this thought just moments ago, he now feels a twinge in his chest, something like disappointment, or regret.

He quickly shoves that emotion to the back of his mind, shakes it off like a wet dog, because there’s no reason to feel that way, and there’s nothing he can do about it, anyway. Just meeting Jonathan Sims once is an incredibly lucky happenstance; he knew, even before dropping him off, even when he had been making him sit in the break room of Blackwood Books and eat a couple of crackers, that this had been a once-in-a-lifetime occurrence, one that he would never get the chance to live again. He can’t help but wish that he had done something differently. What, he isn’t entirely sure. He’s not sure what he _could_ have done differently. But the feeling lingers there, an annoying worm burrowing into his brain, into his chest, making him ache.

He doesn’t see Jonathan ( _Jon_ ) again for close to five months, although when he goes back to his apartment that night, he adds all of the available movies starring Jonathan Sims into his list on Netflix. It isn't until he's settled in, half-dozing off, barely paying attention to what's on the screen (Jon's first film, according to Wikipedia, in which he only had a relatively small background role at the age of twelve, a Jonah Magnus horror production entitled _Anglerfish_ that Martin thinks he saw once, when he himself had been a child and entirely too young to watch it) that the events of the day solidify themselves in Martin's mind. Still behind that veil of disbelief, of unreality, but it finally sinks in that Martin has, in fact, met the man who is widely regarded as one of the best modern actors. 

He shuts off the television, too disoriented by this incredibly delayed revelation to watch that same man (albeit a couple decades younger) walk around within the horror-fueled imagination of Jonah Magnus, brought to life. It's just—it's a bit _much_ , now. So he drags himself to bed instead, where he finally, blissfully, falls into a much-deserved deep and dreamless sleep.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> y’all i cannot BELIEVE how many bookmarks, comments, & kudos this fic already has!! it means so much to hear from you guys and get this amount of feedback, thank you so much!! it really encourages me to keep going, and to go as quickly as possible for you guys 🥺 i hope you all continue to enjoy this!<3 
> 
> (excuse my entirely indulgent thorough descriptions of character’s physical appearances but i personally LOVE my headcanons for them so. yeah. i wanted to be a bit gratuitous. i tried to dial it back a bit. you should have seen my first draft oof. i could wax poetic about martin's appearance for days.) 
> 
> tw for this chapter: implied abuse

Daisy insists on picking Jon up from the airport, a fact that irritates Jon to no end (which, Jon is certain, serves as further incentive for Daisy to do so).

She’s standing just outside the terminal, in a crowd of anonymous taxi drivers holding signs calling for their respective passengers and family members waiting to greet their loved ones after a long getaway. Daisy is by no means positioned front-and-center; she’s standing a little farther back and off to the side, as if trying to make herself inconspicuous, and yet Jon’s eyes land on her immediately. She’s a bit hard to miss, really: she’s very nearly the tallest person in the crowd, not to mention the thickest, her musculature evident even hidden under the layers of clothes she’s wearing to ward off the cold outside. Her brown coat stretches across her broad shoulders, olive-colored pants wrapped tight around thick thighs, a pair of combat boots laced up on her feet and adding a couple extra inches to her already not-insignificant height. She has a black beanie pulled firmly down over her short crop of blonde hair, covering the entirety of her forehead as well as her eyebrows.

And, to complete the outfit, she’s wearing a scowl that communicates perfectly clearly to Jon just how pissed off she is at him.

He’s not in the mood. He’s really, really not in the mood for a lecture from Daisy, not now, not about this. He’s _just_ landed, and he’s jetlagged, and he’s been sitting on an airplane for over fifteen hours, and he’s been up since five-thirty in the morning London time, and being in London for the past four months has done nothing good for him, and he’s just—he’s not in the mood. He wants to go home, and he wants to sleep until tomorrow afternoon. He wants to fix himself a strong drink, swallow it in about three sips, and then collapse on his own bed, in his own house, and slip into that blessed unconsciousness. He hadn’t been able to get a really restful night, while in London. Not once in the last four months did he wake up feeling well-rested.

“You didn’t have to pick me up, Daisy,” Jon says in lieu of hello as he approaches her, walking past her so that he can find his luggage. She follows just behind his shoulder but says nothing; the only noise she makes is a grunt of acknowledgment. Her silence, Jon thinks darkly, is louder than her words would be.

Not that he thinks he’s safe from her words. He thinks she’s just waiting for the right moment to really tear into him. When she has him alone in the car, for instance. That way no one can hear him scream while she’s murdering him in whatever cruel and unusual way she’s had the time to workshop over the last several months.

Jon is wearing an oversized coat, a pair of sunglasses, and a distinctly unfashionable hat to keep himself from being recognized as he winds his way through the airport, his luggage now in hand, following Daisy to where she’s left the car idling. It’s not unusual for someone to recognize him, even through his plethora of disguises, but today everyone seems to be much more concerned with reuniting with family and friends for the holidays, or keeping themselves warm, or rushing from point A to point B. Nobody is expecting for Jonathan Sims to be walking through the airport in Washington, D.C. in the middle of December, so nobody takes any notice of him. Even if he wasn’t wearing a disguise, he thinks that it would be unlikely for anyone to recognize him for who he is. This isn’t Hollywood; this isn’t New York City. Nobody is really expecting to see a celebrity in their midst, and disbelief is a powerful trick of the mind. The mind can rationalize, can convince itself that it’s not really seeing what’s right in front of its eyes, can create justifications that are much more far-fetched than the solution would be under the law of Occam’s Razor. It’s why he moved here, why he chose Virginia for his retirement instead of the flashier suburbs of Tinseltown or the Big Apple.

And, really, Jon doesn’t get recognized so much anymore as he did even just a year ago. That’s the effect of not being in a movie just for a few years—he gets forgotten, to be replaced with whatever newer, hotter, more talented actor is thrust onto the scene at any given moment. The entertainment industry is an eternally-revolving door, and as long as he stays out of it, there’s no reason for him to become trapped within it once again.

Except he _is_ trapped within it. He will always be trapped within it. As long as Jonah Magnus is alive and working, there is no escaping the spotlight, not for Jon. And this time next year, he’s going to be one of the most-talked about actors in the world. He can already see the headlines: **JONATHAN SIMS RETURN TO THE SCREEN AFTER THREE-YEAR HIATUS.** Or, **JONATHAN SIMS TRIUMPHUNT RETURN IN NEWEST JONAH MAGNUS PICTURE.** Or, **DOES JONATHAN SIMS KNOW WHAT IT MEANS TO BE RETIRED? EVIDENTLY NOT, AS HE WILL ONCE AGAIN GRACE THE SCREENS OF MOVIEGOERS EVERYWHERE.**

Just the thought of it makes Jon’s mouth twist, makes his mouth taste acrid with bile and disgust.

As soon as he slides into the passenger seat of Daisy’s car, before she even starts the ignition, she reaches over and smacks the back of his head. It’s not hard enough to _really_ hurt, but it’s hard enough that he can feel it in his teeth.

“Ouch,” Jon says, reaching up a hand to rub at the spot where Daisy hit him. She pushes the button to start the ignition and smoothly navigates out of the hectic airport parking lot, her jaw held tight. “Did I deserve that?”

“Yes, you deserved that, and you know why,” she says, not even bothering to hide the anger and frustration in her voice. “Are you fucking _insane_ , Jon? You’re supposed to be retired.”

“I know—”

“Do you? Because you just spent four months shooting a film, in London, with Jonah Magnus, without even _telling_ me or Basira—”

“I can handle myself—”

“ _Can_ you?”

Jon huffs out a breath and turns to stare out the window, watching as ugly industrial buildings and dead trees and other cars blur by so fast that he can’t make out any details. “You’re not my bodyguard, Daisy.”

“Maybe I should be. You had no one there to look out for you.”

“Gertrude was there. And—”

“Oh, _Gertrude_. Excuse me if I forgot about _Gertrude_. And, remind me, when has _Gertrude_ ever done anything to protect you?”

“I don’t need protection. Please, can we not have this conversation right now?”

“If we don’t have it now, then you’ll weasel your way out of it, and I’ll let you, and we’ll never talk about it.”

“I don’t _want_ to talk about it.”

Daisy is quiet for several moments after that, and Jon can feel her stewing in her anger, can almost see her trying to decide whether or not to push the topic. Eventually, she lets out a long, annoyed sigh, and says, almost under her breath, “God, Jon. I can’t stand you.”

Jon smiles a little bit at that. “I know. That’s why I like you.”

***

He does sleep when he gets home. And he sleeps for ten whole hours, uninterrupted, no nightmares or trauma fighting to make themselves known in his brain for that blissful period of unconsciousness.

But first, he spends some time with Daisy and Basira (who had already been at his house, apparently, with a key that Daisy had given her and absolutely unapologetic about the fact, even while Jon was squawking in mock outrage). Basira proudly proclaims that she’d cooked them dinner, although they all knew that this meant she bought some Chinese takeout. Daisy and Basira both scold him for ignoring almost all of their messages while he was away (Basira: “You could have been _dead_ , Jon!”), and for screening most of their calls (Daisy: “ _We_ could have been dying, Jon!”), and for leaving them without telling them in the first place (Basira: “Get a dictionary, idiot, because you obviously don’t know what ‘retired’ means”). Jon sits in silence and takes it all because, okay, maybe he _does_ deserve it. He should have told them, at the very least. But he knew they would try to keep him from going, and even though he _didn’t_ want to go, he knew he _had_ to, and that was just something he had no intention of telling them because it would raise more questions than it would answer, and those were answers that he was not particularly inclined to giving.

When they’re done yelling at him, they eat. And things are—well, things feel _normal_ again. The way they had felt for the past few years, since his official retirement, since he moved here, to this house. There’s no chaotic shooting schedule, no forcing himself into a role that he doesn’t even feel committed to, no long hours, no trying to get along with people he knows don’t like him, not trying to get along with people he vehemently dislikes. No Jonah Magnus.

There’s just this: Daisy and Basira, bending over steaming stir-fry and lo mein and dumplings, expertly wielding their chopsticks, discussing with Jon the upcoming projects they have to work on, or the projects they’ve worked on since he’s been gone, or the ill-disposed client they had in October who had commissioned a grandiose light fixture that had cost upwards of a fifty thousand dollars. Jon asks when he can go to their studio again (watching Daisy and Basira make their beautiful glass creations is strangely relaxing to Jon, the process so complex and the work so hard and the trust they put in each other to be exactly where they’re needed when they’re needed there without ever once discussing it, not to mention the somehow grounding sounds of metal and fire and glass), and they tell him they won’t be in again for at least a week, but they’ll let him know when they’re starting a new piece. After a couple hours, Basira falls asleep on the couch, and Daisy snuggles in next to her, and Jon gives them the thickest, warmest blanket he can find. He offers one of the spare bedrooms (the bedroom that he thinks of, in his mind, as Daisy and Basira’s bedroom anyway, since they so frequently end up in there), but Daisy shakes her head and mutters something about not wanting to wake Basira, she’s been up since four in the morning finalizing the paperwork for the most recent piece of glass they sold.

So Jon leaves them there, and then he goes upstairs and takes a much-needed shower, turning the water temperature up so high that his skin feels raw by the time he gets out, but at least he feels clean. For the first time in months, he feels really clean.

And then he gets into bed himself, burrowing underneath his covers like a rodent, and he falls into a deep, impenetrable sleep, and he feels… well, if not happy, then he feels content, at the very least. And he’s confident that he’ll make it through the night without the nightmares that have been plaguing him.

And so he does.

And he didn’t even need that drink to do so.

***

Jon had forgotten all about Martin Blackwood, proprietor of Blackwood Books.

He didn’t forget him intentionally, or out of any sort of malice. It’s just—Jon’s a busy guy, and he meets a lot of people (mostly against his will, but still). He can’t be expected to remember the name or the face of every individual he ever bumps into, especially if that specific individual is one that he met in the midst of a panic attack, on a night that he would much sooner forget.

He’s been back in the States for three weeks when he’s walking down Jordan Street, too-large sunglasses perched on the bridge of his nose, his hair tied into a messy bun and shoved underneath a beanie that he has pulled down almost to his brow, a thick and incredibly soft cashmere scarf concealing the lower half of his face, when an overwhelming sense of déjà vu suddenly overcomes him, the sensation so powerful that he nearly trips over his feet as he stops right in the middle of the sidewalk. Some woman crashes into him from behind with a soft “oof,” and Jon lurches forward with the unexpected impact, his sunglasses sliding off his face and crashing onto the pavement.

“Oh,” Jon says, turning to face the woman once he’s regained his balance. His breath clouds in the air between them as he speaks, a bright spot of white in the otherwise dim twilight. “I’m very sorry. Are you alright?”

“Fine,” the woman says brusquely, shooting Jon a glare before navigating around him, scurrying down the street.

Jon huffs and bends over to retrieve his sunglasses, inspecting them for damage and blowing off an imaginary speck of dirt before putting them back on.

He’s supposed to meet Basira for drinks at a bar on Jordan Street, where he’s going to discuss commissioning a new piece of glasswork from her and Daisy, a mutually-beneficial proposal: Daisy and Basira touting that they have created yet another piece for Jonathan Sims on their website is nothing to be scoffed at as far as reputation goes, and Jon simply adores their work. Their craftmanship is impeccable, their aesthetic is remarkable, their personal style is distinct. Above all that, every piece they create is nothing short of beautiful perfection, whether it’s a sculpture, a light fixture, glassware, or any other sort of decoration. Jon already owns no fewer than fourteen original Hussain & Tonner pieces, designed and crafted specifically for him, and he’s always eager to add to that collection. He’d be lying if he tried to assert that his decision to retire in northern Virginia, of all places, wasn’t at least partially due to the fact that this is where their company is based, where they spend most of their time. They’ve grown extraordinary close over the past few years, the three of them, ever since Jon had made the commitment to relocate here, cultivating a relationship that goes much beyond client and employer. Daisy and Basira are, Jon thinks, the closest things he’s ever had to real friends, outside of the industry, and he’s grown disgustingly fond of them, although he’s loathe to admit it (and he knows they’d be loathe to hear it).

The bar that Basira had asked him to meet her at doesn’t have its own parking lot, so Jon had had to parallel park (a skill that, he’ll be the first to admit, he’s not particularly adept at) a few minutes’ walk down the street. On his way to the bar, he began to notice that the shopfronts have looked vaguely familiar, in a way that he can’t quite place.

And then he passes the bookstore. Blackwood Books.

“Shit,” he mutters under his breath, the events of that night nearly half a year go coming back to him suddenly. The phone call he’d received from Elias while enjoying a very nice dinner at the Juniper, the (retrospectively stupid) decision to try to get some fresh air in order to ward off the panic attack that he had felt burgeoning in his chest, the manifested panic attack that followed, desperately trying to find a building that he could get inside so that he could quietly lose his mind in private. Martin Blackwood, the kind bookshop owner, who had done his best to help him, who had forced him to drink some water and eat a few crackers, who had refused to let Jon walk back to the Juniper by himself, who had seemed so genuinely concerned for Jon’s wellbeing. Who had tried his best to treat Jon like a person instead of a celebrity, despite his obvious flusterment.

Without giving the action much thought, Jon opens the door to the bookshop and walks inside, the loud, cheery jangle of the bells over the door announcing his entrance. It’s not even seven o’clock yet, so it’s actually open this time, but, thankfully, it doesn’t seem to be one of those bookstores in which an employee bombards the customer as soon as they walk in, asking if they need help locating anything. Nobody approaches him at all, which he’s immensely grateful for.

On his first visit, he hadn’t really bothered to look around the store, but now he takes the time to do so: there aren’t too many other customers that he can see, maybe four or five milling around lazily and studying the shelves with an expression between concentration and intrigue. It’s much larger than it looks on the outside: not as big as your typical chain store, like a Barnes & Noble, but it’s also much bigger than most independent bookstores Jon has perused in his lifetime. The walls are a nice, calming beige color, the shelves dark wood, the carpet a pleasant shade of light green. It also smells nice but not artificial, something organic, like a crisp autumn night mixed with petrichor, and there’s a lovely, soft instrumental song, incredibly subtle and barely perceptible, playing through some hidden speakers: it’s not a classical song, but one of those modern instrumentals, the kind that you’d hear on a lo-fi playlist.

Jon takes off his sunglasses because, in his experience, wearing sunglasses inside will draw much more attention than just taking them off and risking recognition. He does keep his scarf and his beanie on, though: thank god for winter weather. Disguising himself in the heat of the summer is always tricky, and he’s had to get creative with it before. He much prefers the colder months, when all it takes is a scarf and a hat.

He considers looking at the bookshelves, but he doesn’t really feel inclined to purchase a book at the moment, and, besides, that’s not what he came in here for. So he instead approaches the checkout counter that’s situated in the middle of the store, where he’s hoping he’ll find Martin Blackwood.

Instead, he finds an exceptionally handsome man behind the counter, dressed in an absolutely horrendous floral button-up shirt, the top few buttons undone to reveal a well-defined clavicle. The colors of the shirt are so garishly bright that Jon is tempted to put his sunglasses back on: neon green and bright turquoise and hot pink all swirling together to create the tackiest Hawaiian print he’s ever seen, a pattern entirely incongruous with the weather outside. Still, Jon isn’t _blind_ , and despite the ugly shirt, he can recognize beauty when he sees it: the man’s skin is a color that isn’t quite white but isn’t quite brown; his hair is a brown so dark that it’s almost black, the top left long and slightly wavy, the bottom undercut; his eyes are dark brown and seem to twinkle with some sort of perpetual internal amusement; his features are strong, his bone structure sculpted in a way that reminds Jon of Daisy and Basira’s glass pieces, sharp and strong but graceful, elegant, the way the faces of mythological beings are sculpted by ancient and long-dead sculptors.

He looks like a movie star, Jon thinks, with no small amount of irony.

“You ready to check out?” the handsome man asks with a blindingly bright smile when he notices Jon standing there. His name, Jon figures out by quickly glancing at the nametag pinned to his shirt, is Tim.

“Um—no, I, ah. I was actually wondering if—is Mr. Blackwood in?”

Tim’s dark, expressive eyebrows raise slowly, traveling up, up, up until they’re almost touching his hairline. “ _Mr_. Blackwood?” Then his eyes narrow. “You’re not from the IRS, are you?”

“What—no? _No_. Why would—”

“Police? Government? _Safety inspector_?” He lowers his voice and leans forward confidentially. “If you’re here to inquire about the _orms-way_ in the _asement-bay_ , we got that all cleared up, and we have the paperwork to prove it.”

Jon blinks, completely thrown. “Um. No. I’m just— _worms_? In the _basement_?”

“All cleared up!” Tim announces proudly, bending down, as if to retrieve a piece of paperwork that’s stashed underneath the counter. “I’m more than happy to show you the paperwork, sir, but I’m afraid I’ll have to ask for some official identification first. Don’t want this sort of information to spread, you know. Bad for business.”

“Um. Right. No, I’m not…” Jon trails off, curious despite himself about the story of the worms in the basement. “I’m not a, uh. Safety inspector? I’m just—I’d like to speak with Martin, please. If he’s in.”

“Hmm.” Tim straightens, and this time when he regards Jon, his eyes narrow suspiciously. He leans even further over the counter, as if inspecting him. “Say, has anybody ever told you that you look like Jonathan Sims?”

Jon smiles tightly. “Once or twice.”

Then, from the other side of the counter, before Jon has to endure any more of this very strange conversation with this very strange and handsome man, Jon hears: “Tim, have you seen my coat anywhere? I’m going to run down to the…” Martin trails off as he rounds the counter and sees Jon standing there. “Oh. Jonathan?”

Tim’s eyes widen, and he glances back and forth between Jon and Martin. “Wait— _Jonathan_? As in—you _are_ Jonathan Sims?”

Jon makes a gesture with his hands in a desperate attempt to communicate, _Modulate your volume._ He glances around himself, to make sure that no one has heard this exclamation, but there are still only a few people milling around, and none of them are anywhere near the checkout counter.

Tim seems to understand Jon’s silent gesture immediately because his mouth snaps shut with an almost-audible _click_ of the teeth. But then, a mere second later, as if he’s unable to contain himself, he shoots Martin an incredulous look and asks (albeit in a much lower tone of voice), “You _know_ each other?”

“Er…” Martin casts his eyes to Jon, as if asking for help with answering this question, which Jon thinks is a little ridiculous because it’s quite a simple question.

“Yes,” Jon says, barely concealing his grimace as Tim redirects that incredulous gaze onto him. It’s a look Jon has seen countless times in his life before, and one he doesn’t much care for. Then he looks at Martin. “And I would like to speak to you. Somewhere private?”

“Oh,” Martin says, uncertainly. “Yeah. Er—sure. We can—my office. It’s just… Oh, Tim! My coat?”

Tim shrugs, still keeping half an eye on Jon. “Haven’t seen it. I think Gerry was wearing it earlier.”

Martin throws his arms up in what Jon thinks is supposed to be an exasperated gesture, but it comes off more as fond than anything else. “Since when did my coat become the communal employee coat?”

“Well, it _is_ cozy,” Tim says, in the tone of one that has personal experience.

Martin glares (although, again, there’s a certain fondness to it that Jon feels like an intruder for witnessing). “I should fire the lot of you.”

Tim drops an effortless wink. “You’d miss us.”

“I might, but I’d have a lot less headaches.”

Tim laughs at that, a loud, full-chested laugh that startles Jon in its intensity. He doesn’t think he’s ever heard anybody laugh quite like that.

And then they both seem to remember that Jon is there, and Tim looks a little bashful, and Martin flushes before inclining his head at Jon in the direction of what Jon assumes is his office. “If you’ll follow me?”

***

Jon hasn’t given Martin any thought at all since that night that they first met, but he can’t help but feel that Martin looks somehow different.

Maybe it’s his hair: the last time Jon had seen him, it was a bit shorter, he thought. The strawberry blond hair had been closer-cropped, but now it looks badly in need of a cut, curling past his nape and cascading over his forehead in an unruly mess of curls.

Or maybe’s it’s his glasses: they hadn’t been quite so… round, last time, had they? They’re big and almost perfectly circular, and Jon doesn’t even remember Martin _wearing_ glasses during their first encounter.

Or maybe it’s his figure: he’s rounder now, Jon thinks. Not that he’d been particularly fit during their first meeting, but he looks as though he’s put on some weight even since then. Or maybe Jon is only under that impression now that he’s wearing winter clothes, which are bulkier and heavier than summer clothes.

Or maybe it’s just that Jon is in a better frame of mind now, and the lighting is better, and he’s able to actually take in Martin’s appearance for the first time. His eyes are a vibrant green, and his skin is a milky white, and he’s got a generous smattering of freckles scattered across his face. His cheeks are also tinged a light pink color.

 _This man is beautiful_ , Jon thinks, and then he’s surprised at himself for thinking it. It’s not that Martin is ugly, by any means, but… well, he’s certainly no Tim. But there’s something about him that is inherently beautiful, as if there’s some sort of warm, glowing fire stoked within him and making itself visible from the outside. There’s something inviting about him, welcoming, _comfortable_ , in a way that’s almost sybaritic.

Jon blinks rapidly at these thoughts that come to him completely unbidden and, frankly, shock him. What the hell is he thinking?

“So, erm…” Martin says, rubbing the back of his neck and standing awkwardly, snapping Jon out of his thoughts. “Do you want to sit, or…?” He gestures to the chair sitting on the opposite side of the desk.

Jon shakes his head. “No, it’s alright. I’m not going to take long. I just wanted to stop by and say thank you.”

Martin blinks. “Thank you? For… for what?”

“For, uh. For helping me. The other night.”

Martin blinks again. Then his brow furrows. He leans his hip against his desk and tilts his head quizzically, in a way that Jon definitely does not think is cute. “The _other night_? Jonathan, that was—”

“Jon,” Jon corrects, instinctively.

“—right. Jon. Well, _Jon_. That was months ago. Why on earth are you here to thank me _now_?”

“I…” Jon shrugs. Why _is_ he here now? Just because he passed the bookshop and wanted to—what, to say thank you? After having not seen Martin for months, not even thinking about him, he wants to now suddenly pop in and say a quick _thank you_? Jon feels baffled, suddenly, thrown off by the uncertainty of his own motives. “I was out of the country, for the past few months. And I, uh. I haven’t really. I haven’t really thought about it. But I just passed the shop, and I remembered, and I. I couldn’t remember if I ever thanked you.”

Martin screws up his face in a thoughtful expression, like he’s casting his mind back and trying to recall that night. Jon wonders how many times Martin has relived that night, within his own mind. To Jon, it had been just another random encounter with a random person, but to Martin, it must have been something remarkable. “I think you did.”

“Oh.” Jon clears his throat, straightens his spine. He’s starting to feel a little warm, still done up in all of his layers. “Well. Then, I apologize for wasting your time.”

“What—no! I didn’t.” Martin shuts his eyes, seems to physically recenter himself, and then opens them again. “I didn’t mean that you’re—unwelcome, or anything. You can—you’re always welcome here. Um. If you want to come in. Say hello. Or just, uh, you know. Buy a book. Whatever you want!” He laughs, although the sound is a little forced, a little awkward, a little flustered. His cheeks get pinker.

“Martin.”

“Hmm?”

“You don’t have to… _do that_.”

Martin blinks owlishly. “Do… do what?”

Jon flaps a hand at him, as if to encompass everything it is that he’s doing. “Be so nice to me. Accommodate to me. That’s not what I want.”

Martin’s face clears, as if he’s suddenly coming to a realization. “ _Oh_. No, I’m not—trust me, that’s not what I’m doing! I’m just, er. I’m just a nice guy? I mean, you can ask Tim. The cashier you were just speaking to. He can, uh, he could vouch for me, if you don’t believe me. I’m not—believe me, I’m not going out of my way here, trying to be nice.”

Jon raises a brow, not entirely convinced. “So you’re speaking to me the way you would speak to any other customer?”

“Yes, right, exactly.”

“And you’d bring any regular customer into your office to speak to them?”

Martin frowns then, his expression clouding with polite confusion. “ _You’re_ the one who asked to speak with me privately. Not the other way around.”

“But you would?”

“I would what?” Martin’s tone is still polite, but Jon thinks he detects an iciness in it.

“Bring any regular customer into your office? Just because they ask to speak to you privately?”

Martin’s eyes narrow, and he crosses his arms over his chest. His frown has deepened, and he looks as if he’s starting to get distinctively upset by Jon’s line of questioning. “Look. Jonathan. _Jon_. I don’t know exactly what it is you’re trying to accuse me of.”

“I’m not—”

“You _are_. I’ve been accused and manipulated and—and _gaslighted_ enough in my life to know exactly what you’re doing, and I don’t much care for it.”

Jon scoffs. “I’m hardly _gaslighting_ you, for god’s sake. Don’t be so dramatic.”

A muscle feathers in Martin’s jaw. His face has only become redder, but Jon thinks it’s out of irritation now rather than embarrassment or awkwardness. Jon can see him chewing the inside of his lip in that way that people do when they’re angry and trying not to say something that’s on the tip of their tongue. When he speaks again, his voice is tight, _taut_ , but under control. “I don’t understand what you’re here for, frankly. You say you want to thank me for something that happened nearly _half a year ago_ , and then you question my character and accuse me of being untoward towards you when all I was trying to do was be nice. I get that you’re a big-deal celebrity who’s probably traumatized by, I don’t know, manipulative assholes and—and fans who don’t understand their boundaries, but let me make myself clear: I am not an asshole, and I am most definitely _not_ a fan.” He shuts his eyes and takes a deep breath then, as if he’s just successfully delivered some sort of tremendously difficult soliloquy on the stage. His eyes reopen on the exhale, and then he says, “If that’s all you came here for, I’d like to find my coat so I can go get some tea, thank you.”

Jon wants to say something, to argue just for the sake of being contrary because it’s been _so long_ since anybody has argued with him like this, since anybody other than Basira or Daisy have challenged him or pushed him in a way that isn’t inherently harmful. He knows that that’s a pretty fucked-up thing to take pleasure in, that he shouldn’t want to infuriate Martin, that he shouldn’t want to see how far he can push him, how candid he can force Martin to become with him. And yet. It’s not often that anybody snaps at him like Martin has, or spoken to Jon with anything less than awe or excitement or a painful sort of politeness. There’s something so exciting about it, something intoxicating, in knowing that he can still meet people who really _don’t_ seem to care that he’s a celebrity.

Sure, maybe Martin will think less of him from now on all because Jon, on a whim, had wanted to start an argument (although—had he? He’s still not entirely sure about his motives coming here, but he can’t say he’s entirely displeased with the result). But Jon finds a certain perverse pleasure in knowing that somebody else’s esteem for him has lowered. It’s a refreshing feeling—Jon would even say it’s liberating—to completely destroy someone’s preconception of him to nothingness, to shatter it like a piece of fragile glass.

Jon knows he’s being self-destructive. He knows it’s unhealthy to work to _actively_ make others hate him. But when he’s spent his whole life being adored by millions for no reason other than the fact that he’s acted in a number of wildly successful films, it’s an incredibly gratifying change of pace to make people dislike him by showing them the uglier, more unpleasant sides of his personality.

Jon doesn’t say anything else, just steps out of the way so that Martin can exit the office. Jon moves to follow behind him—and then stops. He sees, sitting on the edge of Martin’s desk, a hardcover book missing its dust jacket. He doesn’t even know what the book is, doesn’t read the spine of it, but for some reason, he’s filled with the sudden urge to take it. He doesn’t want to _steal_ it, of course. He’ll return it to Martin. Eventually. But there’s something inside of him, whispering into his skull, to take it.

So he does. He grabs the book and shoves it into one of his absurdly large and deep coat pockets. Then he leaves the office, shutting the door firmly behind him, and goes back outside, replacing the sunglasses on his face and tugging his scarf back in place, hurrying down the street to meet Basira at the bar he was supposed to be at twenty minutes ago.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> writing a fake wikipedia article is a lot harder than i expected it to be and i gave up halfway thru lol<3 
> 
> tw for this chapter: implied past abuse, description of ptsd/ptsd symptoms

“So…” Tim says, later, as Martin’s running the end-of-day paperwork. He says it in that tone of voice that he has, historically, used when he’s about to pry or start asking questions that he knows may not be received well. Martin doesn’t care for it at all, especially since he knows exactly what kind of questions are on Tim’s mind tonight.

“So what?” Martin asks anyway. And then, before Tim can really sink his teeth into it, “Don’t you want to go home?”

“I would _much_ rather hear you tell me the story of how you know Jonathan Sims.”

Martin glares at Tim. He’s sitting in the chair across from his desk, the same chair that Martin had offered Jon to sit in earlier before he’d decided to prove Martin correct in his previously-held assumptions that all celebrities are, at their core, dickheads who lack tact or basic human decency or any kind of manners at all, really. Despite Jon’s whole spiel in the car during their first encounter together, he’s just proved to Martin that celebrities truly are like a whole different species of people, who don’t understand how to interact with anyone who isn’t part of their ultra-exclusive, outrageously-well-paid, and ridiculously-glorified club. “There’s no story,” Martin says obdurately. “I _don’t_ know him.”

“It certainly looked like you did. In fact, Jonathan Sims himself said you know each other. Are you living some sort of rich and famous double-life that we don’t know about? Like Hannah Montana?”

Martin bites back a smile at that. “Hannah Montana, Tim? Really?”

Tim holds both of his hands out, palm-up, in a _what can you do?_ gesture. “The analogy works.”

“Okay, sure, but, either way. We don’t _actually_ know each other.”

There’s a light knock at the open office door then, and Martin looks up to see Sasha standing there, her bag hanging off her shoulder, a water bottle clutched in one hand, a small smile on her face. “Just wanted to say bye. I’m heading out.”

“Sasha, Sasha,” Tim says in an entreating tone, gesturing Sasha into the office. “You’ll want to hear this, trust me.”

“Tim, _no_ ,” Martin says on a groan, throwing the paperwork aside in favor of dropping his face into his hands in annoyance. “Why do you have to make this such a big deal?”

“Oh, I’m sorry, but the fact that our boss is chummy with Jonathan Sims _is_ sort of a big deal.” He turns his attention to Sasha as soon as the words are out of his mouth, as if wanting to catch Sasha’s live reaction and savor it.

Sasha, for her part, only furrows her brow and glances back and forth between Martin and Tim, uncertainly. “What on earth are you talking about?”

Tim nods eagerly. “Yeah. _Jonathan Sims_. The _actor_. He came into the shop _today_ , while you were stocking the shelves, and he and Martin had a private little tête-á-tête in this very spot.”

Sasha narrows her eyes and looks to Martin, who she evidently thinks can be counted on to tell her the truth and not pull some sort of prank on her, as Tim has been known to do. “He’s joking, right?”

Martin sighs, removes his glasses, leans back in his chair, and pinches the bridge of his nose between his fingers, the universal gesture of the long-suffering, wanting to make it clear to Tim how very much he does not want to be talking about this. He’s still annoyed about the conversation he’d had with Jon earlier (how _dare_ he accuse Martin of trying to take advantage of him? how _dare_ he?), and the last thing he wants is to indulge Tim’s demands to learn more about said conversation.

“No,” Martin says, with no small amount of difficulty. “No, unfortunately, he’s not joking.”

Martin had never told anyone about his little run-in with Jon five months ago, as he had initially intended to. It was just that, after the fact, it had all still felt so unreal, and so circumstantial and coincidental, and so random, and so _meaningless_ that he would’ve felt embarrassed, to say anything. He couldn’t tell them about Jon’s panic attack (or whatever it was) because he’d given Jon his word that he wouldn’t, and he couldn’t think of any plausible reason that Jonathan Sims would come into his bookshop, of all places, after they’d been closed for two hours. He’d have to make something up, which meant lying, and Martin hadn’t wanted to do either of those things. He’s embarrassingly bad at fabricating stories, and he doesn’t fancy lying when it’s not absolutely necessary, so he’d just decided to… not tell anyone at all. They didn’t need to know, and, at the end of the day, there’d been no reason to tell them, anyway. It wasn’t as if anything of any substance had happened—Martin had tried his best to help him feel better, and then he drove him to where he left his car. That was it. Nothing to tell, really.

And if it had been anyone else, anybody other than Jonathan Sims, there really _would_ be nothing to tell. But because it was Jonathan fucking Sims, world-famous celebrity, it would, of course, become overblown into this big event that it _wasn’t_.

“What—why would Jonathan Sims come _here_?” Sasha asks, moving to perch herself on the arm of the chair that Tim’s sitting in.

Tim looks immensely gratified that Sasha has, in his mind, taken his side, by the simple fact that she’s engaging in the act of asking questions. “Why, what a great question, Sasha! That’s precisely what I’m trying to find out.” He turns an expectant smile on Martin.

“Look, I don’t know what you want me to tell you,” Martin says. “He—I bumped into him one day, completely by accident, and—I helped him with something, and he just wanted to say thank you. That’s it.”

“What did you help him with?” Sasha asks, a bit incredulously, like it’s a serious act of suspending disbelief to imagine any scenario in which Jonathan Sims would enlist the help of Martin Blackwood. Which. Okay. That’s probably fair.

“And why haven’t you _told us_?” Tim asks.

“ _Oh_ ,” Sasha says, as if a realization is dawning. “Oh, wait. He probably made you sign NDAs, huh?”

As soon as Sasha says it, Martin feels like an idiot for not having thought of it sooner. “Yes,” he agrees, far too quickly to be entirely believable. “Yes, exactly. Legally, I’m not allowed to talk about it.”

“But he _did_ come here?” Sasha asks, evidently not wanting to let Martin off the hook yet, which. Okay. Understandable, he supposes. “Like, literally, _here_? To see _you_?”

“Yes,” Tim said, turning to face Sasha as much as he can in their close proximity. “They’re _friends_ , Sasha. He might even come back!”

Martin scoffs. “He is _not_ my friend. In fact, I hardly even like him.”

Sasha and Tim both blink at him, big question marks in their faces.

“But I, uh. I can’t… talk about it?” Martin offers lamely, in lieu of any real sort of explanation. “NDAs. Er. I could get sued. For. Defamation?”

There are several beats of silence, and then Tim says, in a voice that sounds incredibly dubious and not at all convinced, “ _Riiiight_.” He stands, and Sasha follows suit, giving Martin a quizzical little look. “Well, don’t think you’ll hear the end of this.”

Martin rolls his eyes and suppresses another sigh. “I wouldn’t dream of it.”

***

Martin can’t find his book.

He knows he left it on his desk in the office. He _knows_ it. He’d taken his break in his office, and he’d read from it while eating his lunch, and he’d set it on the corner of his desk before he’d gone back on the floor. But now, after closing up the store and finishing up the end-of-day paperwork and doing one final walk-through to make sure everything is clean and in its proper place, he’s ready to go home, and he can’t find it anywhere.

Which is… annoying. He supposes he can grab one of the copies off the shelf in the store until he finds his copy, but he likes to highlight and underline and write in the margins of his books, which he can’t do with one that’s not technically his, and he’s afraid he’ll ruin it by spilling tea on it, or getting it wet, or cracking the spine, or bending the cover, or wrinkling the dust jacket, and then he won’t be able to sell it at full price.

He sighs and runs a hand through his hair. He doesn’t know what he could have done with it. Had someone taken it? But who? Gerry and Tim don’t typically read the same types of books as he does, and Sasha always asks before she borrows a book from him, and she’d never just take a book off his desk (one that has a bookmark sticking out the middle of it no less, obviously in the process of being read). He gets on his hands and knees and peers underneath his desk—maybe it had fallen and somehow gotten kicked under the desk? But, no, it’s not there, either.

He lets out a frustrated, confused huff, pressing his lips together and glancing around his office, as if it’ll suddenly appear out of sheer intention alone.

But, of course, it does not.

Okay. Fine. It’s fine. It’s annoying, but it’s fine. Where could it have gone? It’s got to be around here somewhere. He’ll come in a little bit early tomorrow morning and give the store a more thorough search, and if he still can’t find it, he’ll just buy a new copy. It’s not _that_ big of a deal. He’ll just lose the annotations he’s made so far (which, he reiterates to himself, is _annoying_ , but it’s not the end of the world, and it’s not as if he hasn’t lost books before).

With another sigh, he shrugs on his coat (which he had found in the break room, where Gerry had been wearing it on his lap like a blanket), shoulders his bag, shuts off the office lights, and starts the short trek to his car.

***

Snow has started to flurry down in a light shower when Martin finally gets home and pushes his apartment door open. He takes off his coat, brushes some of the snow off of it and onto the floor (which will create a small puddle that he’ll deal with before he goes to bed, provided he doesn’t forget, which he’s liable to do), hangs it on one of the pegs next to the door, and bends down to retrieve the mail that had been shoved through the slat and onto his doormat. He sticks the mail under his arm, toes off his shoes, and makes his way to his kitchen, where he turns on the light and briefly considers cooking a meal (something easy, maybe, like spaghetti, or grilled cheese). He decides to microwave a frozen dinner instead because he’s pretty tired tonight, and he doesn’t feel like washing any dishes or cleaning any surfaces. He tosses the mail onto the opposite end of the table because he also doesn’t feel like looking at any bills or notices at the moment, let alone opening them up and reading them—he only works half a day tomorrow, so he’ll worry about it when he’s not as tired.

After he’s shoveled a Marie Callender’s meatballs and sausage marinara into his mouth, he tosses away the plastic it came in, washes the fork, and retreats into his bedroom. He turns his bedroom lights off, but he grabs his laptop off of his nightstand and turns it on, so that he can do some light internet-surfing before bed.

What he happens upon (and he definitely credits this to the fact that he’s still stewing in some lingering annoyance from his interaction with Jon earlier) is the Wikipedia page for Jonathan Sims.

> **Jonathan Sims** (born October 31, 1987) is an American actor. He has received two British Academy Film Awards and one Golden Globe Award, and he has been nominated for four Academy Awards.
> 
> Sims began his professional career when he was twelve years old, making his acting debut in the 1999 Jonah Magnus horror film _Angler Fish_. Following appearances in Magnus’s horror _Do Not Open_ (1999) and psychological horror _Across the Street_ (2000), Sims’s breakthrough came with Magnus’s horror _Thrown Away_ (2000), in which he played the teenage son of the lead character; he received a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor. His other roles as a young teenager include the historical war thriller _The Piper_ (2001) and the action thriller _Piecemeal_ (2002), and he became a young teen staple in the horror genre by starring in the Jane Prentiss horror franchise (2002-2006) and the Edwin Burroughs duology (2002-2003), as well as _Arachnophobia_ (2002) and _Man Upstairs_ (2003).
> 
> As an adult, Sims gained critical acclaim for his role as Sergey Ushanka in the sci-fi horror _Binary_ (2007), for which he was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actor. He was nominated for his third Academy Award one year later for the psychological thriller _Fatigue_ (2008), in which he portrayed the unnamed man. His other successful films in the 2000s include psychological horror _Upon the Stair_ (2007), action horror _Body Builder_ (2008), horror _We All Ignore the Pit_ (2009), and psychological thriller _Monologue_ (2009). He garnered his fourth Academy Award nomination in 2015 for his portrayal of Herman Gorgoli in the psychological horror _Cul-De-Sac_.
> 
> Sims became a staple in horror films in the early 2000s and is known for his partnership with director/producer Jonah Magnus, appearing in almost every one of his films after his first appearance in Magnus’s _Angler Fish_. Together, the duo is often credited by film critics as reviving the horror genre. Magnus and Sims have experimented in combining horror with other genres, which have resulted in a number of commercial successes, including romantic-thriller _Alone_ (2003) and historical paranormal horror _Total War_ (2011). He has also starred in the films _Thrill of the Chase_ (2012), _Submerged_ (2013), _A Gravedigger’s Envy_ (2015), and the Breekon and Hope horror franchise. In 2017, he officially retired from acting.
> 
> **Early Life and Education**
> 
> Jonathan Sims was born on October 31, 1987 in Bournemouth, England, the only child of Adriana River (“Ana”; _née_ Reyes) and Patrick Ball Sims. His father was of African-American descent, and his mother was of mixed African, Filipino, and Japanese descent. His father passed away when he was two years old and his mother died a few years later, leaving him to be raised by his grandmother in Cocoa Beach, Florida, with little memory of his parents.
> 
> Not much is known about Sims’s childhood with his grandmother. He was described as a smart but difficult child who would get bored easily or wander off unsupervised. He learned how to read at a young age, and he was an avid reader in his childhood. When he was eleven years old, he was discovered by Jonah Magnus while he was on vacation in Orlando, Florida. Magnus approached Sims and asked him if he would be interested in acting. Sims relocated to Los Angeles, California and London, England, intermittently so that he could act under Magnus.
> 
> Sims attended Theodore Roosevelt Elementary School and Cocoa Beach Junior/Senior High School while he lived with his grandmother. Under Magnus, Sims studied under a variety of private tutors. Sims attended the University of Oxford for one semester in 2004 before dropping out to further pursue his acting career.
> 
> **Personal Life**
> 
> Sims rarely gives interviews, and when he does, he rarely talks about his private life. He has explained that he “values privacy against all else” due to having spent most of his life in the public eye. He lives in Virginia.
> 
> As with his early life, not much is known about Sims’s private life. He briefly dated Georgie Barker after filming _Dead Woman Walking_ (2010) together. They were in a relationship from 2010 to 2011 before separating.
> 
> Sims has spoken out in support of feminism, gun control, LGBT rights, police reform, racial equality, and wealth redistribution.
> 
> **Legacy**
> 
> Sims is regarded as one of the best actors of his generation and is often credited with reviving the horror genre.
> 
> In 2013, Sims was voted Number 23 in Channel 4’s countdown of the 100 Greatest Movie Stars of All Time. _Entertainment Weekly_ named him 57th on their list of 100 Greatest Movie Stars of All Time in 2016.
> 
> In 2017, Sims was inducted into the Hollywood Walk of Fame with a motion picture star located at Hollywood Boulevard.

Martin stops reading then, deciding that enough is enough. This is a rabbit hole that he isn’t interested in falling down. He hadn’t ever even finished watching the Jonathan Sims movies he’d queued up in Netflix (he’d finished _Angler Fish_ , and he watched _Binary_ because he’d heard it was one of his best, but he hadn’t gone out of his way to watch anymore; he’s not the biggest fan of horror movies, anyway). He shuts down his laptop and places it back on his nightstand to keep himself from trying to find out more about Jonathan Sims. It isn’t his _business_ , and, really, he doesn’t think it’s very fair that he can know so much information about Jon just by typing his name into Google. He feels like he knows more about Jon, now, than Jon will ever know about him. And how is that fair? It’s not.

Not that it matters, Martin reminds himself as he pulls his blankets up to his chin and turns onto his side after removing his glasses. He’s not going to see Jon again. Once was completely random, twice was coincidence; there’s no way there will be a third time. Especially after how their second meeting went, sourness on both sides. Martin doesn’t regret the way he’d spoken to Jon because he’s well past his days of making himself into a doormat for any entitled, rich asshole who makes himself known in Martin’s presence; if given the opportunity, he doesn’t think he’d act differently if the situation repeated itself. And he’s not exactly miserable about the fact that he won’t ever see Jon again. But it does still put things as simple as Googling a real, living person into perspective.

Martin isn’t reversing his stance on the inherent privilege afforded to the rich and the famous. He knows that his problems and the problems of people like Jonathan Sims will never be on the same playing field, will never even be in the same vicinity. But he thinks that doesn’t really make it okay, the ease with which any person who wants to can find out that Jon’s parents died when he was too young to even remember them; that someone can figure out the exact schools he went to or his general stance on social justice issues; that Martin knows he’s been in a relationship with actress Georgie Barker without ever having to ask; that he can get a glimpse into his real personality, if only because his Wikipedia page briefly touches upon it.

Martin doesn’t think anybody should be able to find out that much information about another person unless they give it personally and freely. But in this age of technology and social media and super surveillance, he supposes that’s an impossible thing to expect, especially of celebrities or anybody else who exists in the public sphere.

But, ultimately, it’s not Martin’s problem. _Jon_ isn’t Martin’s problem. After a good night’s worth of sleep, he’ll hopefully be able to put Jon completely out of mind and move on with his life, secure in the knowledge that he’ll never have to have a run-in with another celebrity ever again. If he’s lucky.

***

The next afternoon, Martin returns home from work with a new copy of Thomas Hardy’s _Far from the Madding Crowd_ sitting at the bottom of a plastic bag from the shop, since he still hadn’t been able to find his book, and he cannot fathom where he would have lost it. He also picked up one of the beautiful new leatherbound editions of _Romeo and Juliet_ that the store had recently received, and he leaves that sitting on his living room coffee table, a reminder to himself to pick it up when he finishes the Hardy novel (a book he’d never been assigned in high school and, as such, had never gotten around to reading until now). He hasn’t read _Romeo and Juliet_ since he was a teenager who didn’t really give a shit about books, and _especially_ not Shakespeare, that most loathed of playwrights amongst high schoolers. He thinks he owes it to the bard to give it another try, especially since he’s since read _Hamlet_ and _Macbeth_ and adored them both.

He decides he should cook himself an actual meal tonight, so he Googles “easy recipes” because he’s by no means a chef, finds a chicken stew recipe that he has all the ingredients for and is confident he can’t mess up, and starts putting it together. Less than an hour later, he’s got a large bowl of steaming stew that smells _delicious_ sitting in front of him and finally starts to go through his mail.

He opens a few bills that he sets aside for later, tosses junk mail into a trash pile, and starts another pile for coupons (he’s not exactly hurting for money, but his mother always taught him to be frugal).

And then he happens upon an envelope that makes his blood run cold. The stew that he’s been eating turns to ashes in his throat, and his appetite departs so swiftly that the sudden emptiness almost makes him physically ill.

There’s no return address, just Martin’s name printed in an elegant cursive hand, so smooth and perfect that it looks as though it’s printed on instead of written, but Martin’s familiar enough with the handwriting to know that it’s not. He knows exactly who it’s from, despite the lack of sender information.

He doesn’t want to open it. If his life were a movie or a novel and he the intelligent, strong-willed protagonist, he wouldn’t open it. He’d throw it away without breaking the seal. He’d rip it up into pieces and toss it into his trashcan. He’d run it through the shredder, or he’d sit it aflame in the sink, and he’d never think about it again, and he’d be that much stronger for it.

But his life is not a movie, and it’s not a book, and he’s just Martin Blackwood, and he’s always been much too curious for his own good.

Martin pushes the half-eaten bowl of stew away from him and flips the heavy, rich envelope over, just fiddling with it for a moment, before he bites the bullet and sticks his finger under the loose part of the flap and tugs at it until the seal breaks. His heart is thudding against his ribcage, and his breath is coming in quick little huffs, and he feels so stupid for being this upset about this letter already, when he hasn’t even read it yet. _This is what he wants_ , Martin scolds himself. _If he could see you right now, he’d be_ ecstatic _that he still has the ability to get to this way, without even a word_.

Martin takes a deep, steadying breath, trying to get his breathing under control, before tugging the heavy, cream-colored parchment from the envelope. It’s just a single parchment, folded in half once, crisply and precisely in the middle. Martin hates the way his fingers are trembling as he unfolds it and straightens it out.

 _Dearest Martin_ , it reads, and Martin grimaces at the intimate epithet, feeling a little nauseous and a lot frustrated, angry at himself with how even after all these years, Peter is able to so easily get under Martin’s skin. He knows the exact buttons to push, the exact string of words or the exact set of actions that will affect Martin in all the worst ways.

_Dearest Martin,_

_I hope you don’t mind my addressing you as such, but after thinking of you in such a fashion for so many years, it’s hard for me to conceptualize you as anything else. You are, and you always will be, my dearest Martin._

_Forgive me, I’ll try to refrain from such maudlin and overly-sentimental rhetoric. You never did have much taste for that sort of language outside of prose, did you?_

_It has been difficult living without you these past few years. I am not writing you to tell you how much I miss you, although I feel it would be remiss of me not to mention it. I know I was difficult to be around (although you did not come without your own difficulties, as I’m sure you remember), but of everyone I’ve had in my life, you were always the easiest to be around. I miss having that. I have never been able to exist with someone else the way I did with you. I have never been able to feel so comfortably alone with anybody else, the way I was able to with you. So, yes, I miss you._

_The reason I am contacting you now, after so much time apart, is to ask a favor of you. I know you are out of the habit of being by my side, but I have a public event coming up soon that I wish for you to accompany me to. It would look better for me to arrive with a partner, and I can think of literally no one who I can stand the company of for long enough to ask them, aside from you. It may also benefit you, if you’re still writing that cute poetry of yours. There will be publishers and literary agents at this event who I can’t imagine would be averse to discussing business, and with me at your side, I doubt they would say no to taking a look at your stuff. This arrangement, I assure you, would be a completely professional and mutually-beneficial affair. And, of course, it goes without saying that you will be very generously compensated for your attendance. _

_I hope you give this proposition serious thought, instead of dismissing it out of hand, which I know will likely be your first inclination, if you’re anything like I remember. I am not asking for anything else from you: just your company at a public event (and might I just stress the word public here; no funny business, unless, of course, you are so inclined). _

_I will send you another letter with a way to contact me with your answer in a few weeks’ time, after you’ve had sufficient time to think it over._

_Yours ALWAYS,_

_Peter_

An icy numbness has stolen over Martin as he finishes reading the letter. He doesn’t really know what to think. The subtle yet pointed insults sting, the way they always have, but Martin can’t help but to be a little taken with the compliments that are scattered throughout, either. He knows the compliments are not necessarily compliments he should be aspiring to, but they’re compliments all the same, and he can’t stop the flush of pleasure that he feels when he reads them.

Still, Martin’s not stupid. He’s not the naïve seventeen-year-old he had been when he’d first met Peter, a broke high school dropout who had been desperate for money and intimacy anywhere he could find it. He’s not the twenty-five-year-old he had been when he’d left Peter, after years and years of his life had been wasted under Peter’s abuse and manipulation. Martin’s an adult now, and he’s been on his own for many years, and he knows how to navigate the world on his own. He’s smarter and wiser than he was when his life revolved around Peter Lukas, and he won’t fall for Peter’s manipulation a second time, not when it was so incredibly difficult to walk away from it once already.

Martin’s not interested. He doesn’t want to see Peter again, doesn’t want to risk becoming ensnared in that web. He doesn’t need the money anymore, doesn’t crave the intimacy the way he once did, and he most certainly does not want to rely on Peter to become published or successful in any capacity. He doesn’t want to live in Peter’s debt.

And then, suddenly, he doesn’t feel numb anymore; he feels _angry_. How _dare_ he? How _dare_ Peter write him, after so many years apart, and ask this of him? Martin had made himself quite clear when he’d left Peter that he did not want to be contacted again, that he had no interest in ever playing the nice little subservient boyfriend role to the wealthy, powerful, emotionally-detached Peter Lukas. That way lies the opportunity for fresh hurts that Martin has no intention of becoming victim to.

Martin is so angry that his eyes start to burn with tears, which startles him, and then it makes him even angrier because he _hates_ that Peter can still have this effect on him. He _hates_ that he can still elicit this sort of emotional reaction from him, that he can drag Martin through the whole spectrum of human emotion with one single letter. It’s embarrassing, and it’s infuriating, and it’s just—it’s _too much_. He doesn’t want to relive his life with Peter, doesn’t want to go through that trauma again, even if only within his own head, but that is precisely the path that he’s going to start going down, if he lets his mind linger on it.

Which he will. He knows himself well enough to know that he will dwell on this letter, and then he’ll dwell on his past, and he’ll dwell on all the worst memories he has with Peter.

He pushes out of his chair, goes into the kitchen, and rummages around in his drawers and cabinets until he finds his stem lighter. Then he holds the parchment over his sink and sets it on fire, watching with a combination of satisfaction and anxiety as the letter goes up in flames. He turns on his faucet and drops the still-burning paper into the sink before he inadvertently sets off his smoke alarm, watching as the ashes and the bits of parchment swirl down the sink drain.

He tries to distract himself with cleaning: putting away the leftover stew, washing all of his dishes, sanitizing his entire kitchen. But he’s never been an obsessive cleaner, and he finds it hard to continue wiping down surfaces that he knows have already been thoroughly cleansed. And he just did a thorough deep-clean of his apartment a couple of days ago, and he doesn’t feel like doing it again.

He considers reading his book, but it’s always been difficult for him to focus on a story when he’s in a bad mood. Similarly, he knows putting on a movie or a television show will do very little to distract him from his current mindset.

So he finds his cellphone and texts Gerry, who he’d tasked with closing the store tonight: _I’m coming back._

Ten minutes later, Martin is wrapped up in his coat and has put on an outfit suitable for work, his car keys hanging from his fingers. He checks his phone and sees that Gerry has texted back: _everything ok?_

 _Fine_ , Martin types. _Just need a distraction_.

Gerry sends back a string of sad faces and question marks, which Martin doesn’t reply to. Nobody at the store knows about Peter, and Martin isn’t about to confide in them. It’s a humiliating part of his history that he’d rather them not be privy to. This isn’t the first time Martin’s come to work when he wasn’t originally scheduled to just because he was in a bad mood or needed some sort of distraction; it doesn’t happen often, but it’s happened enough times that his employees know it to be an occasional habit. They won’t pry; they never do. But Martin does hate the concerned glances they send his way when it happens, the way they navigate around him as if he’s fragile and on the verge of shattering, which is quite far from the truth. He still chats with them, still jokes and smiles and does his work as usual. He likes to place himself in a familiar and friendly environment when he’s in a bad frame of mind. He’s spent a lot of his life isolating himself when he felt badly, retreating within himself and remaining there until his negativity faded from a boil to a simmer: not quite as hot, but still there. He’s learned, as he got older, that he could remove himself from the heat entirely, just by surrounding himself with people and places and things that make him feel content, happy. It’s one of the hardest lessons he’s ever learned, but he’s grateful that he has, even if he still struggles with it sometimes.

He knows it’d be even better for him to actually talk about it, that there’s still a low, low heat eternally burning inside of him, just begging to catch a spark and become a fire. He knows it’s not healthy for him to bottle up his emotions, to completely conceal some of the most important (and some of the worst) years of his life for fear of reliving that particular trauma. But the alternative— _actually_ vocalizing it, _actually_ reliving it—is impossible for him to even consider. He can’t even begin to imagine telling Gerry, or Sasha, or Tim about his years with Peter. He can hardly speak to them about his relationship with his mother, which is small fish compared to his relationship with Peter. He’s afraid that they’ll—he doesn’t even know, that they’ll realize how messed up he is and finally decide to leave him. That they’ll quit Blackwood Books and begin the process of emotional separation. And would Martin even be able to blame them? Not really. He has more baggage than nearly anyone else he’s ever met; he’d much rather present himself as the happy, kind, accommodating, caring man with no real problems to speak of than the damaged, inherently unlovable man he feels himself to be on the inside.

He’s trying to make himself into a better person, into the best version of himself he possibly can be, but it’s not an easy feat, and it’s one that sometimes takes a lot more work than he’s able to afford it.

Martin tries to shake all thoughts of Peter Lukas or trauma or anything else even tangentially related from his mind, and, with a deep sigh, he leaves for work for the second time that day.

What he does not expect, as he’s locking his door behind him, is to have another encounter with Jonathan Sims before the day is over. The possibility is not even a question in his mind. In light of Peter’s letter, Jon is actually the farthest thing from his mind.

And yet. 

And yet.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> apologies that this chapter is pretty introspective and not much happens! i always get carried away when writing emotional stuff, esp pertaining to trauma, since i tend to articulate and project my own trauma onto fictional characters<3 next chapter will have more Stuff happening, i promise! 
> 
> if you wanna talk to me or follow me on tumblr even though my blog's not tma-centric you can do so [here](http://ryanberga.tumblr.com) :-)


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so so sorry this one took longer than the others i had some trouble writing it and also my team was playing the world series when i started writing this (they lost tho rip) so watching that seriously cut into my writing time and then immediately after that i was consumed with election anxiety (still am lol!) and could not force myself to write so :( better late than never hopefully the next one will come sooner! (also not super happy with how this one turned out but idk what to do to make it better, hopefully the next chapters will be better than this one!) 
> 
> (me, sobbing quietly, imagining all the possibilities of a gerry/martin friendship: please let them interact……..pls…..)

Jon doesn’t know what he was thinking.

 _Why_ had he taken Martin’s stupid book? Retrospectively, it makes absolutely no sense (although, to be fair, it had made very little, if any, sense in the moment, either). And, really, there’s absolutely no actual _reason_ why he had done it. He’s not a kleptomaniac, and, despite what Martin so clearly thinks about him, he’s not one of those celebrities who feels entitled to everything they see, either. He hadn’t been filled with a burning desire to read that particular book, hadn’t even known _what_ the book was, when he’d taken it ( _Far from the Madding Crowd_ , a book which Jon has read before, which makes it difficult verging on impossible for him to attempt reading it again, even though he remembers enjoying it immensely).

So why on earth had he done it? To ensure that he had a reason to go back to Blackwood Books and speak with Martin again? But then that begs the question: _Why_ would he want to see Martin again? There’s not a particular reason why he _wouldn’t_ want to see Martin again, but, conversely, there’s not a reason why he should be itching to do so, either. Martin is—he’s just a _guy_. He’s just a random guy, absolutely nothing special about him, who’s given Jon no reason at all to be in any way interested in him. And yet—there’s something magnetic about Martin. There’s something drawing Jon back to him, back to that bookshop, something within begging him to start another conversation with him, to see where it goes.

And Jon—well, he doesn’t know what he’s supposed to make of that. He’s never felt this singularly interested in a random person before, especially a person who’s made it more than clear that he’s in no way interested in becoming acquainted with Jon. What little Jon has seen of his personality seems nice, in an altogether unremarkable way; and, sure, he’s objectively handsome in an ordinary and slightly unconventional sort of way, but Jon has never been easily swayed by physical appearance alone.

Jon thinks it’s the book.

The book, which Jon had stolen for no obvious reason except, apparently, so that he has an excuse to see Martin again.

The book, which is filled (up to the point it’s been read to) with annotations written in a surprisingly elegant hand and passages highlighted in various different colors and certain words or turns of phrases underlined.

The book, which contains thoughts in Martin’s handwriting on the romance and the characters central to the plot, thoughts like: “ _unfulfilled fantasy, born from and for disappointment_ ,” “ _bitterness of insufficient love (insufficient osmosis?)_,” and “ _inadequate romance_.”

The book, which, next to the underlined quote, “Kiss my foot, Sir; my face is for mouths of consequence,” Martin had written, in all capital letters: “ _OOH BURN YOU TELL HIM_.” There’s a passage that reads, “I have nobody in the world to fight my battles for me, but no mercy is shown. Yet if a thousand of you sneer and say things against me, I will not be put down!” Martin has highlighted this, and then written in the margins, “ _19th-century pre-feminist thought written by a man!_ ” followed by a cute little drawing of a cartoon smiley face and a heart.

The book, which Jon is unable to reread because he knows it’ll ruin the memory of it in his mind, which he nonetheless skims through with Martin’s annotations to get a gist of his general thoughts on the novel. There are several lovely quotes he has highlighted (“And at home by the fire, whenever you look up there shall I be, —and whenever I look up there will be you.” and “In short — I shall astonish you all.” and “Are you not more to me than my own light and life?” and “She chafed to and fro in rebelliousness, like a caged leopard, her whole soul was in arms, and the blood fired her face.” and, maybe Jon’s favorite of them all, “I cannot tell you. It is difficult for a woman to define her feelings in language that is chiefly made by men to express theirs.”).

Jon has trouble rereading books, or reading books he feels like he’s read before, or books that are too similar to another one he’s read in the past, but he thinks this is… well, it’s rather lovely. It’s not quite rereading, more like experiencing the same book through a different lens, someone else’s lens, and it’s—it’s peculiar enough that he doesn’t find himself getting bored, or drifting away from the text the way he normally would with a book he’s read before. It’s actually quite _enchanting_ , to read somebody else’s notes on a book he’s already read himself, to see the ways in which the words and the text have impacted a completely different person, which lines and passages and themes stuck out in any sort of insightful way, to gain an insight that he otherwise would never have been privy to.

Jon knows it’s completely ridiculous and incredibly invasive. He knows these are Martin’s private thoughts, and, stealing the book aside, actually reading those thoughts had been a major lapse of judgment. Jon is always moping and pouting about his lack of privacy, and here he is, going through the personal thoughts of somebody who he hardly knows, if at all, and just—for what? Because something inside of him compelled him to? Because some nameless, unknown, anonymous, totally out-of-line part of him whispered into his ear to play the villain and steal Martin’s book and then infringe upon his privacy, all so that he could have not only a reason to see him again but also something to talk about with him? As if Martin will want to discuss anything he’d written with Jon. As if Martin will want to treat Jon as an acquaintance in any sort of capacity, after he finds out what Jon had done.

And so Jon had made the decision that he would return the book. As soon as possible. Better to clear this mess up, to rip the Band-Aid right off instead of letting the wound fester, or whatever the saying was. Get it over with, receive the scolding he knows Martin is likely to issue him like the man he is, and then walk away with his tail tucked between his legs and move on with his life.

He decides to wait until just before the store closes the next day to go back and return the book because he assumes the store will be relatively empty at that time. It’s ten minutes until eight when he pushes the door open, that now-familiar tinkle of bells chiming his entrance.

He blinks.

The interior of the shop has been decorated with a frankly obscene amount of Christmas lights. There are colorful string lights wrapping around every single bookshelf that Jon can see, and there are white string lights hanging from the ceiling, making the place look like the inside of a Christmas tree more than a bookstore.

Jon is a little alarmed by this sudden change. He hadn’t been prepared for this. It throws him off. He’d come in here with a clear purpose, but now he feels like he’s been suddenly thrust into some alternate universe version of Blackwood Books, one in which the store had had a baby with some sort of Winter Wonderland display shop. It’s like that store from _Elf_ , he thinks, with no small amount of horror.

“That looks perfect, Gerry!” Jon hears from somewhere towards the back of the store.

Very tentatively, still feeling a little off-balance, Jon follows the sound of the voice.

“Are you sure we aren’t overdoing it, Martin? It’s so bright in here.” Another voice, one Jon has never heard before, sounding what Jon thinks is a very reasonable mixture of dubious and awed at the sheer amount of string lights that are decorating the store.

“It’s not _bright_ ; it’s _festive_.”

“Festive in the brightest possible way it could be. It’s giving me a migraine.”

The sound of an amused snort. “That’s not exactly a difficult feat to accomplish. You get migraines from tying your shoes.”

“Ha-fucking-ha.” This delivered so flatly that it makes Martin giggle.

By the time Jon locates the source of the voices, though, Martin is gone, and only the man named Gerry (nametag: “Gerard”) is left behind, tugging at a string of multi-colored lights as if trying to reposition it. He has pale skin, but everything else about him is dark dark dark: blue eyes so dark Jon mistakes them as black at first glance, and long, straight black hair tucked neatly behind his ears, and dark shadows underneath his eyes. He’s tall and thin, wearing a pair of black Doc Martens that add a couple more inches to his height. Black ripped jeans, a black shirt with a low neckline, a black leather jacket, a black choker, a black bracelet around one wrist, black-painted nails. And then there are the piercings and tattoos: he’s got two hoops in one eyebrow, as well as a septum piercing and a labret and several hoops and chains all over his ears; and he has little black-and-white tattoos in the shape of what Jon thinks are eyes, all of them, on his knuckles and finger joints, on his knees, one on his throat. It’s… it’s a little startling, if Jon is being completely honest. He’s not the kind of guy to judge one by their physical appearance—normally—but this man (Gerry, Gerard, whatever) is so far outside of the realm of what Jon had been expecting to see in someone working at Blackwood Books that it discombobulates him even more than he already is. As far as appearances and aesthetic goes, this man looks about as far from Martin as Jon can envision.

“Can I help you?” he asks when he notices Jon, in a totally neutral tone, as if he doesn’t care one way or the other.

“Um. Yes, I—is Martin here?” He feels a sudden surge of déjà vu, not completely dissimilar to the one he’d felt just yesterday, when he’d stopped himself walking outside of Blackwood Books. This has happened before; here he is again, asking after Martin for the second time in as many days.

Gerard narrows his eyes. Jon gets the feeling that he’s not going to be nearly as friendly as Tim had been. “Who’s asking?”

“Uh. Jon?” He considers, then figures he may as well bite the bullet, and says, “Jonathan Sims.”

Gerard raises a brow, unimpressed. “I’ve never heard him mention you.”

Jon blinks. “Um. Yes, well, we’re rather new acquaintances.”

“Not sure now’s a good time. He’s busy.”

“I understand, but I really must speak with him. I have something—”

“Look. Jon, is it? If I may be blunt: I don’t really care. He’s busy, and I’m not exactly keen on letting a random stranger walk in off the street to speak with him right now. We’ve both got jobs to do, so if you don’t mind buying a book or leaving. We close in two minutes.”

Jon lets out a small sound of disbelief. “Who are you, his keeper? I won’t take up much of his time.”

A dark look passes over Gerard’s eyes. “Buy a book or leave,” he says, enunciating every syllable very clearly. “I do not like to repeat myself.”

What follows is contest of glaring and willpower. It’s all a bit ridiculous, Jon is well aware: he, an acclaimed film star, standing in the middle of a completely arbitrary bookshop in a completely arbitrary city in northern Virginia, participating in a staring contest full of tension and dislike on both sides, all on account of Martin Blackwood.

Jon’s not sure how long they’re locked into their little unfriendly competition, although it couldn’t have been longer than a minute or two, when he hears Martin’s voice, already familiar to him even though he’s only met the other man a couple times: soft and firm at the same time, something inherently kind about it, warm and welcoming and pleasant to listen to. Although at the moment it’s dubious and not nearly as friendly as Jon would like. “What’s going on here?”

Both Jon and Gerard turn to face Martin at the same exact moment and with what Jon thinks must be the same exact speed, whipping their heads to the side in what must have been a comical, cartoonish synchronized gesture to an outside observer. They both try speaking at the same exact moment as well.

Gerard: “I was _trying_ to tell this customer that we’re closed, but he has been very rude and standoffish and refuses to listen to me.”

Jon: “I was _asking_ him if I could speak with you, but he was acting like I’m some sort of common criminal walking in off the street.”

Martin shuts his eyes and pinches the bridge of his nose with his forefinger and his thumb, the universal sign of long-suffering. “What do you need, Jon?”

Petulantly, Jon aims a triumphant glare in Gerard’s direction.

And then Martin continues: “Now really _isn’t_ a great time, so I’d appreciate it if you kept it brief.”

Gerard smirks at Jon.

Jon scowls. Then he makes the executive decision to ignore Gerard entirely. He clearly isn’t bent on helping Jon out in any way whatsoever, so, as far as Jon is concerned, he isn’t worth the irritation. He turns his attention back to Martin, angling his body slightly in a way that he hopes suggests to Gerard that he is no longer needed for this interaction. Regardless, he can still feel Gerard standing there, the tension emanating from him. “May I speak with you privately?”

Martin makes a noise that’s somewhere between a laugh and a scoff. “Are you insane? Last time we spoke privately, you levelled accusations against me.”

Jon understands, in retrospect, that that may not have been the best way to try to befriend Martin. “I—yes, well. That was very rude of me. I apologize.”

Martin raises an eyebrow, clearly unconvinced. The brightly-colored lights are glinting off the lenses of his glasses, so that Jon can’t really see his eyes underneath the reflection of colors. There’s a strange unearthly glow about him under those Christmas lights; they make him look insubstantial, somehow, ethereal and not quite of this world.

“I mean it. I’m not—this isn’t easy for me.”

Martin opens his mouth, his brow furrowed, and Jon can tell by the way his body position shifts that he’s becoming defensive, that he likely has something scathing or derisive pooling onto his tongue, an insult waiting to be flung in Jon’s general direction. But then, all at once, he seems to think better of it, and his mouth snaps shut, and he physically deflates a bit.

 _He’s too good_ , Jon thinks suddenly and with a small amount of panic. _He’s too kind. How selfish of me to try to drag him into my orbit._

But then, before Jon has a chance to examine these thoughts or to second-guess his purpose for coming here, Martin turns and motions for Jon to follow him.

Jon does so, ignoring the glare he can feel Gerard aiming hotly at his back. As soon as he’s sure they’re out of earshot, Jon tells Martin in a nevertheless low voice, “I don’t think he likes me.”

“Not everyone has to like you, you know. You’re not entitled to that.”

Jon blinks at Martin’s broad back, taken aback by the hardness in his voice. “I wasn’t—that’s not what I was implying. I was just trying to make conversation. Besides, I don’t think he even knows who I am. I told him my name, and he didn’t seem to recognize it,” he says as Martin unlocks the door to his office and gestures Jon inside.

“Gerry’s not much of a pop culture person, no,” Martin says, shutting the door behind him.

“Somehow, that does not surprise me.” Jon is struck, now, by how plain Martin’s office is: there’s the big desk situated in the middle of the room, a huge cozy chair on either side, a couple of books on the desk amongst scattered paperwork and a big desktop and a clunky printer. There’s a large, industrial-looking file cabinet shoved in the far-left corner of the room with a bulky and heavy-looking safe sitting next to it, and there’s a coat thrown over the back of Martin’s chair, and there’s a bag on the floor, but otherwise: nothing. Which Jon doesn’t think is _too_ odd, except that this is literally Martin’s bookstore, and it seems like he’s always here, and Jon is surprised to find it devoid of any real personal affectations. There are no artwork or posters or calendars or papers on the wall; no framed photographs of family or friends on his desk; no decorations at all, not even of the silly desk variety. Jon doesn’t know why this strikes him as it does, this feeling of an absence. There’s an essential aspect of Martin Blackwood that is missing here, that doesn’t exist in this office, and Jon’s not sure how to feel about this assessment.

“So,” Martin says, leaning a hip against the side of his desk, crossing his arms over his chest, staring at Jon with an utterly unimpressed expression. “What was so urgent that you had to come back here for the third time during closing in as many days to speak with me?”

Jon has the grace to be ashamed about it, at least. He rubs the back of his neck with a hand, an obvious nervous tic, and drops his gaze to his shoes. He steels himself, then looks at Martin. “I, uh. I might have. I accidentally took something of yours home with me, last I was here.”

Now Martin’s brow furrows, his face twisting itself into a clear mask of confusion. “Something of mine? What are you talking about?” But even before the last question leaves his mouth, the confusion starts to clear, and an expression of dawning realization overtakes his features. “ _You’re_ the one who took my book?”

Instead of answering the question verbally, Jon pulls the book in question out of his coat pocket. He hands it to Martin, although Martin makes no move to grab it. He just stares at Jon, his mouth hanging open in what Jon thinks must be some sort of combination of anger, bewilderment, and indignation. He’s staring at Jon with horror and something else that Jon can’t quite place, something like appraisement, although Jon thinks that’s not quite the right word for it. It’s more like he’s just realized that maybe Jon _is_ actually a common criminal, and he’s considering what action to take against this particular problem.

Finally, reluctantly, Martin steps close enough to snatch the book out of Jon’s hands. He flips through it, swiftly, as if checking it for damage, and then he places it, very carefully, on the desk behind him. When he turns his attention back to Jon, his face has gone a little distant, as if a mask has been pulled over his features. “Did you read it?”

“I’ve read that book before,” Jon says, purposefully not answering the question because he’s unsure how Martin will react, and he knows Martin already doesn’t exactly hold the highest opinion of him. “Years ago. And I’ve only had it for about a day. So, no, I didn’t read it.”

“Did you read my annotations?” Still that cold, distant expression; still that cold, impersonal tone of voice.

He could lie. Jon knows this. It’d be the easy thing to do, to just deny it, say it had been a total and complete accident, that as soon as he’d realized what he’d done he came straight back to return the book, that he would never infringe upon Martin’s privacy like that. Except that he had done exactly that, and he doesn’t think lying to Martin will do him any favors.

“Some of them,” Jon says, although it’d be closer to the truth to say, _most of them_.

“Those are my personal thoughts, Jon,” Martin says in a voice that sounds so completely hurt and betrayed that Jon feels a pang in his own heart.

“I know, I’m—”

“Why would you even take this in the first place? Why would you steal _my book_?”

“I didn’t steal—”

“Oh, right, because you brought it back, you didn’t steal it? You _took it_. Without my _permission_. That constitutes stealing, in my book. You stole _my thoughts_ , and you can’t give those back.”

Jon almost flinches at that one; it’s only his lifetime of training as an actor that keeps him from doing so, that enables him to keep perfectly still and steady in a moment of unwanted and unexpected emotion. It’s silly, Jon thinks; the very thing that drew Jon back to Martin in the first place is the thing he now finds he wants least in the world. He doesn’t want Martin to be angry with him, or upset with him, not about this, not about something that _matters_. “I didn’t know you had written in it when I took it.”

“That’s not the _point_ , Jon! You shouldn’t have taken it in the first place; it wasn’t yours to take!” Martin’s not shouting, but he’s speaking with an intensity that feels somehow loud to Jon. “Not only did you steal, but you also committed a serious invasion of privacy. I would think you, of all people, would know enough about that to not subject others to that sort of treatment.”

“I—you’re right,” Jon says because there’s not anything else he _can_ say to that. “You’re right, and I’m sorry. I just wanted to return it to you.” Jon steps away from Martin, closer to the door, raising his hands in front of him as if to say, _I give up, I’ll go_. “I won’t, uh. I won’t come back here again. I don’t want to bother you anymore, if that’s what I’m doing here.”

Martin stares at Jon, coldly, for several long seconds, and then all at once, he seems to deflate, for the second time that night. He tosses the book onto his desk, runs a hand through his hair (in need of a haircut, Jon thinks), and lets out a huge breath, his body sagging back against his desk once again. He crosses his arms over his chest, but not, Jon thinks, in a defensive way, more like it’s his default body position and he’s falling back into that accepted pattern. Jon can imagine Martin standing here, having a conversation with Gerard or Tim in the same exact position but under completely different circumstances.

“No, I—of course you’re always welcome here, Jon,” Martin says. “I’m not going to _ban_ you, although I can’t imagine why you’d want to come back.”

“It’s a nice shop,” Jon remarks, immediately latching onto a nonconfrontational topic of conversation. “Really. It’s much better than big corporate bookstores, that’s for sure.”

Martin snorts. “That’s a low bar.”

Tentatively, Jon allows himself to smile, just a little. “And I like the Christmas decorations.”

“You don’t think it’s too much? Gerry thinks it’s too much.”

“I don’t think it’s too much,” Jon says. “It’s festive.”

“That’s what I said!”

“Are you—” Jon cuts himself off, afraid of overstepping his boundaries, of charting into dangerous and personal territory. After a brief moment of consideration, he decides it’s an okay and relatively neutral question, so he asks, “Do you have any plans? For Christmas?”

Martin blinks at Jon, like he’s unsure if he’s heard him correctly. Martin has been acting so remarkably _normal_ , talking to Jon this evening, that it’s been easy to forget that this must be a highly unusual situation for Martin: having yet another conversation with Jonathan Sims in his bookstore past closing time. “Um. Er. Yeah, I—I mean. We. The office. We have a Christmas party. On Christmas. We do a, uh—ha, but you probably don’t want to hear about it.” Nervous laughter, pink cheeks, staring at his shoes.

“I do,” Jon says, quick to reassure. “I asked. If you want to tell me.”

Martin lifts his gaze back to Jon, staring at him for a few long moments, as if assessing his sincerity, as if trying to discern if Jon is genuine in his inquiry or if he’s simply humoring Martin, pulling his leg, playing a joke. Jon’s used to this, this distrust. He’s used to anybody who doesn’t know him personally and intimately to assume the worst of him, to ascribe to him the same general character that they associate with most movie stars or famous people: that he’s an asshole, that he’s superior, that he thinks he’s better than everybody else. That he doesn’t care about anyone who isn’t also a celebrity, that he’s just a rich and ignorant douchebag. Jon tries to plaster the sincerity onto his face, but he’s not sure if it translates.

Martin must see something there, though, because he runs his hand through his already-disheveled hair and opens his mouth, probably to answer the question, to elaborate on what, exactly, the Blackwood Books office does for its Christmas party, when there’s a loud, intrusive knock on the shut door, and then, without waiting for any sort of invitation, the door is thrown open, and Gerard has shouldered his way into the office, glancing quickly in Martin’s direction as if to make sure that he’s okay before redirecting the full heat of his glare to Jon.

“Are you done here? We’re officially closed, and we’ve got things to do. _Both_ of us.”

And just like that, Martin seems to snap out of whatever realm of comfortability he had entered with Jon. His spine straightens, his posture stiffens, his expression shutters. Jon ceases to become another person and turns once again into Jonathan Sims the Customer, Jonathan Sims the Movie Star. “Right, yes,” he says, brushing off imaginary dust or dirt from his sweater (a ridiculously oversized, soft-looking, peach-colored thing, so big on Martin that he has to roll the cuffs of the sleeves up or else they would extend well past his hands). “I’ll grab the cash drawers.” And then, to Jon: “Thank you for returning my book to me. I’ll follow you out.” He gestures to the door, where Gerard is now leaning against the doorframe, arms crossed over his chest, eyebrows raised, the perfect picture of utter callousness. He looks like he wants to smirk but like Jon isn’t worth the effort is would cost. He also looks incredibly tired, deep circles underneath his eyes, and his cheeks look hollow, Jon notices now that he isn’t in the middle of an argument with him. He looks like someone who’s severely lacking in both nutrition and sleep.

Jon wants to say something, but he doesn’t. Not only does he know for certain that Gerard would not appreciate or believe any sort of concern coming from him, but he also has a feeling it’d be entirely unwanted and definitely crossing a line. Instead he just mutters, as he walks by him, “It was nice to meet you Gerard,” to which Gerard replies by giving Jon a quick smile that’s more like baring teeth than an actual grin and says, “Back atcha.”

He feels Martin at his back, and Jon, stupid as it is, doesn’t want this to be the last time he sees Martin. He doesn’t want this to be the last conversation he ever has with him. It’s silly, and there’s absolutely no reason for it at all, but Jon still finds himself drawn to Martin in some inexplicable way, still finds himself wanting to continue their acquaintance. He wants to give himself a reason to see Martin again, to come back here, to have another discussion with him. Which is strange and more than a little terrifying because Jon legitimately cannot remember the last time he felt this way about anyone, any stranger. He can’t remember the last time he’d been seized with a desire to actively create any sort of relationship with somebody, and that’s scary, but he doesn’t think it’s a bad scary.

So while he’s walking to the front, when they pass the checkout counter, he stops suddenly, turns to Martin (who is standing _much_ closer than Jon had been expecting him to be, following behind by only about a foot), and asks, “Will you sell me a book?”

Martin rears backwards a bit at their sudden proximity and immobility, and then he rears back even further when the question seems to register in his mind. “Sell you… a book?”

“I mean. This _is_ a bookstore,” Jon says, feeling incredibly awkward, tugging at the sleeve of his coat. He takes a step backwards, nervously. “I’ve been here, what, three times now? And I haven’t purchased a single item. I know you’re about to close, but I—I can pay with card. It won’t be a hassle.”

“Er… _okay_?” Martin draws the word out and ends it like a question, like he’s questioning Jon’s motives here. “Um. Do you need, I don’t know, time to look around? Or…?”

“Oh. No, I wouldn’t—you’re closing, I won’t waste your time. I just—what book would you recommend?”

A pause. Then: “ _Me_? You want _me_ to recommend you a book?”

“Well… yeah?”

“Oh. Um… okay. I don’t—what do you like to read?”

“Hm. I can read anything, really. I’m not specific about genre. I just—it’s difficult for me to read something I’ve read before, if that makes sense? Or even something that’s too similar to something I’ve read before. I can’t—it bores me, terribly.”

Martin narrows his eyes suspiciously. “But you read my annotations? On a book you’ve read before? Doesn’t that, I don’t know, constitute reading something similar? It _is_ the same book.”

“No, I don’t—that’s different. That was…” Jon trails off, unsure how to say it without sounding like an invasive asshole, or a creep, or a horrible combination of the two.

But Martin seems to understand what Jon isn’t saying. He raises his eyebrows, and there’s a glint of something that might just be amusement in those bright eyes of his. “That was _what_ , Jon?”

Jon runs a hand quickly over his face, as if to clear it of any self-betraying expressions. “Christ. Nothing. Forget it.”

“No, what? What was it?”

“Martin, I don’t want to—”

“If you want me to sell you a book, then you need to finish that sentence.” There’s no anger there, just a mischievous gaiety, as if he’s taking pleasure in Jon’s obvious embarrassment and mounting mortification at his own actions, now that he’s having to say them out loud.

“You know what? I don’t need a book that badly,” Jon says, partially because he really doesn’t want to get into the stranger aspects of his psyche that make it impossible to reread a book but apparently makes it feasible and even _enjoyable_ to read Martin’s annotations on a book he’s read before (these aspects of his psyche being a mystery even to Jon himself), and partially because he just wants to see if he can push Martin, if Martin will try to push back at Jon.

“Oh, come on,” Martin says, his tone still light and now tinged with a playful exasperation. “It can’t be that bad. I already know what you were going to say, anyway.”

“Oh?”

“You were going to say something about it being juvenile, yeah? Something about how it read separate from the book because it didn’t make much sense in context with the book? How it might as well have been about a completely different book?”

Jon is so thrown off by these assumptions that his brow furrows in confusion, and his mouth opens as he tries to figure something to say in response. It takes him a moment to readjust, mentally, from the guilty embarrassment he felt at Martin’s teasing to _this_. Because, yes, Martin is still definitely teasing Jon, but now the vehicle has shifted from playfully making Jon feel bad to self-deprecation, and Jon had not been expecting that.

“What?” he asks, obviously taken aback. “No— _no_. I wasn’t going to say that at all. Is that what you think?”

Martin looks equally as stunned at the sudden shift in mood; he clearly had meant to keep the tone light, but now Jon’s the one who’s gone and turned it serious, and Martin is obviously not prepared for the change. “Oh. Er.” He lets out a nervous little chuckle, rubs the back of his neck with a hand, looks down at the floor, his cheeks turn pink: all glaring nervous tics. “I just thought—I didn’t mean—” He cuts himself off abruptly with another laugh. “Is that not what you meant?”

“Of course not,” Jon says, appalled that Martin would think so. “Your notes weren’t _juvenile_ , Martin. They weren’t _bad_. They were quite good, actually.”

“I don’t—we don’t have to talk about this, really,” Martin says, hurrying to move behind the checkout counter and tapping at the screen of the computerized register, busying himself in an attempt to do anything, seemingly, but look at Jon. “I know Gerry’s going to be ready to leave soon, he’ll just be waiting on me, so I better hurry up and get this stuff done.” He pops out the cash drawer from the register and yanks it out with a metallic _clang_. The bright Christmas lights are casting him in a rainbow of colors, and Jon is seized once again with that inexplicable and totally nonsensical feeling that Martin isn’t quite _real_. He’s filled with the sudden urge to reach out and touch him, to place his fingers on the skin of his cheek, to prove to himself that Martin isn’t some weird figment of his imagination, and all of this is frightening and unsettling for a variety of reasons. Jon doesn’t just _touch_ people; Jon has never been a very tactile guy, has never been interested in making physical contact with another person, has never seen the point in it. Jon, for the most part, associates any sort of physicality with pain; he’s only used to being touched when it hurts. And more than that, Jon is _wildly_ confused about why some small part of his brain is so insistent that Martin isn’t real, why his mind is so fixed on _Martin Blackwood_ , of all people, to the point that he feels like Martin is something that could slip out of his grasp. He feels like Martin is something to be held onto because he thinks that if he doesn’t, if he lets go, Martin will cease to exist for him, he’ll be lost to Jon forever, and that’s something that, for some completely unknowable reason, Jon wants to prevent.

What is it about Martin? What is it about this random, nondescript stranger? What is it about him that keeps Jon coming back to this bookstore, that keeps him seeking Martin out? What is it about him that Jon finds so fascinating? What is it that he recognizes within Martin as something that Jon thinks he can potentially be compatible with, in whatever small way? What is it about Martin that makes Jon think, for perhaps the first time in his life, that he’s capable of _goodness_ just because somebody like Martin exists? He doesn’t even _know_ Martin, not really, but it’s just—it’s the way he carries himself, the way he cares for his employees, the way he does his remarkable best to treat Jon like he would anybody else.

Martin feels like something tinged with magic, and as baffled by this thought as Jon is, he also sort of understands what it is that he’s trying to convey to himself.

For the first time in years, Jon is genuinely interested in another person, someone outside of his elite little circle, someone outside of Daisy and Basira, and whatever reason there is for that, whatever inexplicable reason, Jon thinks that this is a relationship worth pursuing, if Martin will let him.

“I’m sorry,” he blurts, before he can stop himself. “I didn’t mean to, uh. Make this weird?”

“What?” Martin asks, rounding the counter with the drawer held against his hip. “You—no, you didn’t, it was me. I’m, uh. I’m not great with, er. Well. You know.”

Jon doesn’t know, but he decides to spare Martin and not to pursue the topic and nods agreeably instead.

“Oh, shoot!” Martin exclaims, pantomiming smacking his forehead with his free hand. “You wanted to buy a book! I completely forgot—I just shut down the computer. I can’t—”

“Oh. That’s okay.”

“I’m really sorry—”

“No, Martin, really, it’s fine—”

“I can boot the computer back up, but it’ll take time—”

“ _Martin_. It’s fine. Really. You don’t have to do that. I can, um. I can come back? Tomorrow? If that’s, uh, okay with you.”

A hesitant smile, small but there, curls the corners of Martin’s mouth. “Yeah. Sure. I mean, if you want to. I don’t want you to feel obligated or anything.”

Jon nods, opens his mouth to reply—but then, from the other side of the store, Gerard’s voice, raised in an exasperated shout: “ _Oy_! Is that prick still here? I’d like to get home before the sun rises, boss!”

Martin bites his lip to keep from smiling larger or bursting out into laughter or both. Jon wants to be offended, but the sight of Martin fighting against an obvious display of joy kills any indignation he might have otherwise felt. He allows himself a very small, barely-there smile and rolls his eyes in theatrical annoyance.

“I’m sorry,” Martin says again, although this time he doesn’t sound sorry at all.

“I should head out, let you get back to work,” Jon says, backing up in the direction he knows the door to be in. “Have a good night, Martin.”

Martin’s laughter subsides, and his smile diminishes into something small and shy. “Yes. You too, Jon. Have a good night.”


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i’m gonna start putting potential trigger warnings in the end notes so that they’re hidden from people who don’t want to see them or get spoiled about the contents of the chapter! so please be sure to check the end notes if you have any possible triggers!! whenever there are triggers in a chapter i’ll add a reminder here in the beginning notes to make sure you don’t forget to check! that being said, pls check the end notes for trigger warnings :)

Martin dreams, that night—alongside thousands of other cinephiles and teenage girls who are into that dark, brooding sort of thing—of Jonathan Sims.

It’s vague, in the way that most of Martin’s dreams are. When he wakes up, it’s without any real details, without any idea as to what the dream itself had actually been about. Maybe it had been nothing; maybe it had been more the abstractness of Jonathan Sims that he dreamed about, the aesthetic concept of him. Or maybe there had been some kind of genuine thread there, a real plotline of events: an exposition, a rising action, a climax, the whole package. Martin doesn’t know; he doesn’t remember. All he knows for certain is that he wakes up with the image of Jon floating around in his mind.

Except, no, that’s not quite right, either. It had been more like—fragments of Jon had appeared to him, separately, small zoomed-in snapshots of different pieces of him. Martin had an impression of Jon’s clavicle (a part of Jon’s body that Martin has never before seen), sharp and vulnerable-looking. He’d seen his hands: long-fingered, thin, graceful in a way Martin’s own hands are definitely not. He’d envisioned his eyes, those strange eyes of an undiscernible color, something that Martin thinks is between green and brown but can’t quite decide confidently, those eyes that are always hidden and guarded and distrustful. He’d seen his mouth: lips perpetually chapped and slow to smile, although there’s a kind of humor that Martin thinks he can see lingering there that Jon perhaps keeps tucked away, like maybe he doesn’t trust himself to be anything less than serious and composed and completely in control of the situation and his emotions at all times.

So, yes, Martin had dreamed of Jon, but not in a weird, live-out-your desires way (at least, not that he can remember). When Martin wakes up the next morning and realizes that Jon is the first thing on his mind, he rationalizes it, chalks it all up—very reasonably—to the fact that he’s had several conversations with the famous movie star Jonathan Sims recently, two of which had occurred over the past two days in a row, and now he’s expecting for Jon to return for a third time today. Because he, inexplicably, wants to purchase a book from Blackwood Books, so much so that he’d forego the easy convenience of shopping online from Amazon or Barnes & Noble. It makes absolutely no sense to Martin, but he thinks that the minds of the excessively wealthy work in mysterious ways that Martin will never be able to fully comprehend.

Martin feels, absurdly, nervous.

He feels nervous to see Jon again. He feels nervous about this apparent pattern that’s developing between them, if you can call something a pattern if it only lasts for a few days. He’s nervous about Jon showing up at his workplace whenever he wants and completely throwing Martin off for the remainder of the day. He’s nervous about the fact that Jon is the one in control of whatever strange acquaintanceship they’ve built, that he is able to get in touch with Martin if he’d like but Martin has no way to contact him whatsoever. He’s nervous about the power imbalance inherent in whatever dynamic they possibly create together: Jon is wealthy and famous and loved by millions around the world, and Martin is—he’s none of that. He’s nervous that it seems, on the surface, that Jon would hold all the cards, would have all the leverage, in anything they could potentially build, because Martin’s only real relationship had been entirely dependent on a similar power imbalance, and he had sworn to himself he wouldn’t fall into a trap like that ever again, that he’d never again let himself be that willfully blind or naïve.

He’s nervous that he’s even thinking these sorts of thoughts, that, in his mind, there’s apparently a possibility that he and Jon could become friends. He’s very likely giving himself false expectations. And, besides, he shouldn’t even _want_ to be friends with Jon. Jon has already betrayed Martin’s trust once, by stealing his book and reading through it (which Martin _is_ still mad about, but he’s never been the type to stew in his anger). The fact that they’ve only really known each other for a cumulative total of about three days and Jon has already once infringed upon his privacy does not bode well for the future trajectory of any friendship they could possibly produce.

And yet, Martin wakes up looking forward to seeing Jon that day. He’s nervous, but he’s also a little giddy. He doesn’t totally believe that Jon will actually show up—he’s got to have more important things to be doing—but just the knowledge that it’s a very real possibility, that it’s the first time their meeting has been planned in any way, is enough to make Martin nervous and excited and self-conscious. Even though he’s dubious about Jon’s intentions, and he’s not sure if there’s actually any real potential for a relationship of any kind, it doesn’t diminish the fact that Jon _is_ famous, and he has, for all appearances, taken a liking to _Martin_ , of all people. Plain, boring, insignificant, unimportant Martin. It’s tough to wrap his mind around.

Martin is interested Jon, in a very abstract way. He’d like to get to know him better, but he knows he likely won’t get the chance. He wants to know who Jon is beneath the movie-star veneer, but he doesn’t think it’s feasible. And then there’s also the question of if Martin would even _like_ Jon, if given the chance to discover his true personality. It’s all purely theoretical, this hypothetical relationship with Jon, but Martin is… he’s _interested_ , alright? He’s hesitant, he’s dubious, but he’s also interested.

And so, for the first time in about a decade, Martin finds himself agonizing over his outfit that morning, like a stereotypical high school girl when she knows she’s going to have an encounter with her crush on that particular day (although Martin squashes that word, _crush_ , immediately; not only is that most definitely _not_ what this is, but it’s also just so incredibly juvenile that he cringes to think it, especially when applied to himself). And it’s so stupid because it isn’t like this is going to be Jon’s first impression of Martin; it isn’t as though Jon hasn’t seen Martin running on only a couple hours of sleep already, like he hasn’t seen Martin exhausted after working a long day, probably at his most unattractive, with dark bruises underneath his eyes and his hair disheveled and his clothes wrinkled and his glasses askew and maybe even a tea stain on his sleeve.

He decides, immediately, to keep it simple. Casual. Although this is less of a conscious decision and more of a logical conclusion that he’s aware has been made before he even really makes it. He doesn’t want Jon to think he’s trying to look nice on the one day that Jon has explicitly told Martin he would come to the store (even though he does, in fact, want to look nice—Jon has yet to see Martin in anything over than his worn-out, end-of-workday worst).

He spends an embarrassing amount of time flicking through shirts and coats hanging in his closet, but he eventually goes with a plain long-sleeve slate-gray button-up, and he layers a cream-colored sweater over top of that. He considers wearing a pair of his nice pants, but instead he goes for jeans, that article of clothing that is the epitome of casualness. He pulls on a pair of thick black socks and then tugs on his old, comfortable white tennis shoes, the shoes being just old enough that they appear stylish and vintage rather than dirty and tattered.

Next, he tries to get his hair under some semblance of control in the mirror. He’s let his hair grow way too long, as he tends to do in the winter months, when it’s cold and having any extra bit of warmth wherever he can get it is much preferable to attempting to look put-together. He wishes, now, that he’d just done the sensible thing and cut his hair. No matter what he tries to do to it, it looks unkempt and sticks out in weird ways that Martin doesn’t even think should be possible. It’s annoying because it’s just long enough that he thinks he _should_ , theoretically, be able to tie it back, which he thinks would make him look altogether more presentable, but it’s just short enough that actually tying it back isn’t as feasible as appearances would lead him to believe.

After struggling for several minutes in a futile attempt to make his hair look anything except for the way it _actually_ looks, he gives up. He runs his fingers through his hair so often that he would mess it up pretty quickly, anyway, had he been able to morph it into something he deems acceptable. At least it looks soft. That’s always a plus. Even if it’s slightly too long, it still looks clean and soft. Which, Martin thinks, is a set of low standards if ever he’s heard one.

As he frowns at his appearance, he becomes filled, so suddenly and so overwhelmingly that it makes him feel briefly nauseous, with self-conscious doubt.

What is he _doing_? Trying to make himself look good for _Jonathan Sims_? It’s ridiculous. It’s ludicrous. It’s _laughable_ , is what it is. Because—well, look at him! He has none of the natural physical appeal that people like Tim have—he’s _plain-looking_. He doesn’t think of himself as ugly; he thinks he’s so uninteresting-looking that it doesn’t even warrant the question of ugly versus pretty. Nobody looks at him and has a strong physical reaction to him. People look at Martin and look away and don’t think about him again; people look at Martin and then promptly forget they’ve ever seen him. People look at Martin, but they don’t really look at him, they look past him and through him, because there’s nothing to _look at_. His skin is pale and pink and blotchy and covered with freckles that he’s always felt incredibly self-conscious about ( _You certainly didn’t inherit those freckles from_ me _,_ his mother had told him once in a tone of such unfiltered disgust that it made Martin feel ashamed, although he had no idea what for at the time). His hair is a color somewhere between blond and red that does not at all complement his complexion. And then there’s the fact that he isn’t exactly what you would call in-shape. Martin has long ago learned how to be comfortable in his own body, has long ago taught himself the lesson that body size does not equate health or beauty, that you can be fat and still be happy, healthy, loved. But the societal norms pertaining to the body’s size are hard things to unlearn when you’ve always been bigger than everybody else, no matter how consciously he does so, no matter the fact that he’s lived happily in his body for so many years now. And in moments of extreme self-doubt, all of the lessons he’s learned flee his mind entirely, all the advice he’s strived to live by, all the years of working through the shame he’s felt about his own body disappearing, and he’s left with this: this feeling of ugliness, of unmerited guilt and remorse, of embarrassment at his own body.

It has been so long since Martin’s had any reason to feel this negatively about himself, and he hates it. It reminds him, terribly, of the way he used to always feel about himself when he was around Peter, or when he knew he was going to be around Peter, or whenever Peter would make an offhand, thoughtless comment about Martin’s weight. It reminds him of the nights Martin would crawl into Peter’s bed, and instead of kissing him or embracing him or touching him at all, Peter would turn on his side so that his back was to Martin, making it clear he had no intentions of intimacy. Martin knows, knew even then, that sometimes Peter just didn’t want to be present with Martin, that he just wanted to be alone in Martin’s presence; Martin knows, knew even then, that these nights were not indicative of how attractive Peter found Martin. Even if Martin didn’t particularly want intimacy from Peter on any given night, he always, always craved the intimacy for fear of the alternative, which felt like rejection. Which felt like failure. Which made him think that Peter was finally sick of Martin because his mother had always told him that nobody would ever love him with a body like _that_ , that there was just _too much of him_ for another person to love. And Martin knows that his mother always meant this in a purely physical sense, but, with Peter, Martin also had gotten the sense that there was too much of him emotionally to love, in addition to physically. He was too needy; he was too clingy; he demanded things of Peter that he knew Peter would never give to him, and he offered things to Peter that Peter clearly did not want.

And all of this, this whole examination of Martin’s relationship with Peter, of his body, of his weaknesses and his flaws—all of this passes through his mind in the span of a few seconds, all because Martin wants to look nice for his possible encounter with Jonathan Sims today.

Martin just—he feels so stupid. His mind is so impossibly fucked up, from the treatment he’d received from his mother and then the treatment he’d received from Peter. He’s a ball of nerves and anxiety and self-consciousness and doubt and _guilt_ , guilt about _everything_ , and he is a chronic people-pleaser (what Gerry likes to call a _doormat_ ), and the thought of disappointing somebody, the thought of not being enough, the thought of being _too much_ —it’s crushing.

This is why he shouldn’t even want to get involved with Jonathan Sims. This is why he should just—he should just leave well enough alone. Forget about all the other reasons why this would be a bad idea (and there are _plenty_ ). At the end of the day, it comes down to this: Martin can continue living a life alone and feel, if not happy, then mildly content; or he can choose to allow a new person into his life, a person who, even only platonically, would have the power to make Martin feel the way he feels now: utterly inadequate, inherently unlovable.

Martin splashes some cold water onto his face in an attempt to clear his mind of this line of thinking. Then he pulls on his winter coat and leaves the apartment for work. He’s going to be a little early, but he needs to distract himself from whatever emotional turmoil he’s currently experiencing, and work has always been the thing that can occupy his mind when nothing else can. And he doesn’t think Gerry will be particularly upset about getting to end his shift early, if he so desires.

***

Sasha is the one closing with him tonight, which Martin thinks, at first, is a blessed relief. She won’t badger him about the Jon thing the way Tim would, and he’s certain that Gerry just flat-out doesn’t like Jon based entirely on their first encounter (a suspicion that is confirmed when Gerry tells him, before clocking out for the day, that he did not like him). Sasha is calm, level-headed; she won’t irritate Martin just for the hell of it, and she won’t act antagonistic towards Jon when (if) he comes later.

But then, when the bookshop’s business slows down towards the end of the evening, around seven o’clock, they’re both standing behind the checkout counter, just hanging out and waiting until they can start their closing store tasks, when Sasha says, “Oh! Have you seen this?” She proceeds to pull out her cellphone and starts to search intently on it for something. Martin assumes she’s looking for a cute video of a baby animal, or the newest internet meme, or some new bit of political news that will either enrage him or please him. She says, “Aha!” and then hands her phone to Martin, who accepts it with an amused smile as he glances at the screen.

His smile freezes on his face when he reads the headline: **JONATHAN SIMS’ COMEBACK: THE DETAILS OF THE FORMERLY-RETIRED ACTOR’S FIRST FILM IN THREE YEARS**.

“Pretty neat, huh?” Sasha asks, a smile in her voice. “Now you can say you’re friends with an active actor instead of a retired one.”

“We’re not friends,” Martin mutters, scrolling down to read the article.

> Jonathan Sims, 32, has returned to acting after a three-year hiatus, which he had declared to be an official retirement in 2017. It is no surprise that the new film, which is slated for release late next year, is the newest Jonah Magnus production, a psychological horror called “LOVE BOMBING.” Magnus and Sims have worked together extensively in the past and are together often credited with the mainstream and critical reprisal of the horror genre.
> 
> “LOVE BOMBING” focuses on Barbara Mullen-Jones (played by Melanie King), an unsuccessful stand-up comedian who feels dissatisfied with her life. Her friend introduces her to a meditation class in an attempt to help her find new balance in her life, but the class quickly turns into something much more sinister when she’s invited to a spiritual retreat in Arkansas. The film explores the separate psychological mindsets of different members of cults, including the disillusioned, the faithful followers, and the leaders.
> 
> Sims will play Claude Vilakazi, the charismatic leader of the Divine Chain, the cult central to the plot of the film.
> 
> We reached out to Sims for comment on this sudden reemergence from his retirement, but we have been unable to contact him. We were able to reach Elias Bouchard, Sims’s manager, who had this to say on the topic of Sims’s retirement: “I never truly believed that Jonathan was out for good. You can take the man out of acting, but you can’t take acting out of the man. It’s what he’s meant to be doing. This is where he belongs.”
> 
> Magnus, who has worked closely with Sims since he was a child, said something similar: “He didn’t know anything other than acting, and he wanted to try new things. He’s tried new things now, and I think he’s realized this is what he’s meant to be doing. I can confidently say that this will not be the last time I work with Jonathan.”
> 
> In addition to King and Sims, the movie is set to feature Georgie Barker, Trevor Herbert, Jordan Kennedy, Jurgen Leitner, Julia Montauk, and Gertrude Robinson.

“Wow,” Martin says, handing Sasha back her phone once he’s done reading it. “I’m surprised.”

“Yeah, it seems like everybody is,” Sasha says, pocketing her phone. Her hair has fallen out of the loose ponytail she’d tied it into earlier in the day, and she tucks a dark strand behind her ear now, smiling at Martin as she does so. “That’s cool, though. Hey, we should go see it together when it comes out.”

“Yeah,” Martin agrees, more for the sake of being agreeable than because he actually wants to.

Martin _is_ surprised, but more than that, he’s confused. Jon had told Martin, during their first encounter, that he was retired, and that was only months ago. Surely he had known, at that point, that he was going to be filming another movie, that he _wasn’t_ actually retired anymore. And, the way the article quotes this Elias Bouchard and Jonah Magnus, it sounds like he won’t go back into retirement anytime soon, either. So why would he tell Martin that he was?

Not that it really matters, Martin thinks. There had been no reason, on that night, for Jon to tell Martin the truth—they were strangers, and neither of them had thought to ever see the other again, and it shouldn’t have mattered one way or the other what Jon had said to him. It’s not as if Jon had lied to him—except, maybe he technically had. Martin doesn’t know; there’s no way to really know, except to ask Jon about it, which he thinks is way out of line. Jon doesn’t _owe_ Martin anything; they’re not friends. They hardly know each other. There’s no reason for Martin to make demands of any kind from Jon, and there’s no reason for Martin to expect anything of Jon.

Martin just can’t fight the feeling of betrayal that comes over him. It’s ridiculous, and it’s irrational, and he _knows_ this. He’s well aware of this. Jon hasn’t done anything wrong by omitting information from him, especially since they barely know each other, since they can barely call each other acquaintances, let alone _friends_. But Martin’s already been experiencing intense feelings of self-doubt today, and it’s like he’s looking for any little thing to make himself feel worse about, it’s like he _wants_ to self-destruct and is searching for any excuse to do so. He feels like he deserves it, to feel terribly about himself, and his mind is latching onto whatever it can to deepen that feeling.

And this just solidifies it in Martin’s mind: he should not even attempt to pursue anything with Jonathan Sims. Because it’s only been a few days, and already, these old feelings of inadequacy and embarrassment and guilt have resurfaced, emotions he hasn’t felt with such intensity in years, not since Peter. And he knows it isn’t Jon’s fault that he feels this way; he knows it’s his own insane neuroses, knows it’s the chemicals in his brain misfiring terrifically, knows all of this stems from his own deep well of psychological trauma, but that doesn’t really change anything. It doesn’t change the choice he has to make, which ultimately boils down to prioritizing his mental health or prioritizing Jonathan Sims. It doesn’t seem as though he can do both at once because Jon makes him feel the way Peter made him feel, which is entirely unfair, Martin knows: it’s unfair for him to project the dynamic he had with Peter onto whatever possible dynamic he could attain with Jon. But the comparison is there regardless.

He hadn’t felt this way, when he had met Gerry, or Sasha, or Tim. The fact that he feels this way towards Jon doesn’t seem like a good sign.

Martin just—he wishes he were more normal. He wishes he’d had a more normal life, or that he’d been able to adjust to his traumas in a healthier way. He knows that they all have their own private traumas—him and Gerry, Sasha and Tim. It is, he thinks, the reason why they all get along so well, why they’d all been drawn towards each other to begin with. They recognized in each other that brokenness, and they filled all the missing pieces of themselves with bits of each other. None of them talked about it, not really; they were extremely close, the four of them, but there are some things, Martin knows, that you simply can’t speak about, even to those who you are closest to, even to those you would trust with the ugliest parts of yourself. He knows that none of them are what you would call the most well-adjusted in life, but Martin often finds himself wishing he were more like Gerry, who seems so perpetually unfazed by everything, who always speaks his mind, who stands up for himself and for those he cares about without even thinking about it and without giving a damn how others perceive him for it. He wishes he were more like Sasha, who’s always optimistic, who’s level-headed even when everything around her is chaotic, who offers the best advice and approaches every situation with a perfect balance of gravity and levity. He wishes he were more like Tim, who knows the best way to make everybody else smile, who’s so easy with physical affection, who can interact with practically anybody in the whole world without getting all twisted up about it.

And then there’s Martin, who’s trauma manifests itself in anxiety and isolation and self-destruction. He loathes the mindset that many people hold that says that trauma makes a person stronger (because this is simply not true), but Martin wishes that his trauma had least chosen a manifestation that could be presented as anything other than crazy, that could be in any way spun as something positive. But he doesn’t cope with honesty or hope or humor. He copes with harm, and there’s no positive spin to be put on that.

He watches Sasha now, as she helps a customer, and he feels a sudden powerful swell of love for her, for all of them. Martin has never had a lot of friends, and he’s never had any family other than his mother (who he’s never had a good relationship with), but when Martin looks at Sasha, or Gerry or Tim, he thinks: this is my family. These are the people who matter. These are the people who care.

He doesn’t need anybody else; this is enough for him.

***

Every time the bell over the door chimes during that last hour of work, Martin can’t stop his eyes from involuntarily drifting to appraise the incoming customer: Is it Jon?

He tries to distract himself by stocking shelves that don’t need to be stocked, or cleaning surfaces that don’t need to be cleaned, or taking inventory that doesn’t need to be taken—literally any banal task that he can conceive of before he’s able to start the closing tasks. He talks to Sasha when she’s not helping customers, and she’s more than happy to converse with him, although really what she’s interested in doing is badgering him about what he wants for Christmas (Sasha: “It’s in literally a week, and you’re the only person I can’t think of a thing to get for you!” Martin: “I don’t need anything, Sasha, don’t waste your money on me.” Sasha: “I’m going to get you something no matter what; it’s up to you to decide if I get you something you’ll certainly like over something you certainly won’t.”).

In the end, Martin doesn’t even notice when Jon does eventually come in because he’s shut himself into his office in order to count down one of the two cash drawers. It’s fifteen minutes until closing, sufficient time to start the closing paperwork and tasks, and he’s just finishing up, zipping up the safe deposit into its bag for the bank, when Sasha knocks at the door and then proceeds to open it without waiting for an answer.

“Someone’s asking for you,” she says, but she says it in the way that lets Martin know immediately who, exactly, that someone happens to be. She looks a little flustered, a little wide-eyed, like she doesn’t quite know how to process the fact that Jonathan Sims is really here, in her presence, in her place of employment, asking after Martin Blackwood, her boss and friend. Like she’s unable to reconcile the conceptual knowledge that Jonathan Sims actually exists within her sphere with the undeniable proof that _Jonathan Sims actually exists within her sphere_.

Martin is very tempted, for a few seconds, to tell Sasha to get rid of Jon, to tell him that Martin is occupied, that he’s too busy to sell Jon a book ten minutes before they’re closed.

But Martin is too good, and so with a sigh, he shuts the safe and exits his office and begins the very brief search for Jon. Martin finds him near the front of the shop, where he seems to be considering very deeply the seasonal display Martin had put together with Gerry’s help the previous day (all Christmas-related or Christmas-adjacent books, of course—Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, Las Posadas, as well as books that are entirely non-religious that simply celebrate or take place during the winter season—arranged on shelves in a bookcase that is shaped like a Christmas tree and strung with the same lights that he and Gerry had arranged around the rest of the store, so that it looks like a cute little Christmas tree made out of books). As usual, Jon has an entirely too-thick scarf wrapped around the whole lower half of his face and a beanie pulled down his forehead, so that pretty much all of his features are obscured, so that nobody who doesn’t know to look for him would recognize him as Jonathan Sims.

It is remarkably hard, Martin thinks, to hold onto his conviction to actively not care about Jonathan Sims when he sees him the way he is now: totally candid in a way that allows Martin to see him as the person he is rather than the movie star, his too-big scarf and too-big coat and too-big hat enveloping a body that looks so incredibly small and vulnerable underneath it all, his eyes squinted in an obvious expression of concentration, his brown skin turned golden and pinkish and a little orange and green in the cast of the Christmas lights. He looks so normal, looks like someone Martin would, under any other circumstances, be greatly intrigued by and interested in.

Is it fair of Martin to make such grand assumptions about Jon and whatever possible nature of relationship they could develop? Martin knows it isn’t, knew even as he first thought it that it wasn’t. He knows he shouldn’t project past traumas onto future relationships, but that’s a philosophy that is much easier said than done, and one that Martin has to actively work at.

He doesn’t know what he’s going to say to Jon, even as he opens his mouth to do so; he thinks he needs to stop _thinking_ about it so much. He needs to stop overthinking it and just… let it be. See what happens. The way people with brains wired correctly would do.

“Find something you want to buy?” is what Martin ends up going with, which is—well, it’s a little lame, but it’s a solid conversation starter, all the same.

Jon startles just the smallest bit, as if he hadn’t noticed Martin’s approach, which is believable, considering how hard he seemed to be staring at the books on display. “I don’t feel very strongly about holiday-themed books, so probably not. Lovely display, though.”

Martin can’t suppress the self-satisfied smile that spreads at that. “Thanks. I worked hard on it. Gerry helped, too.”

Jon makes a noncommittal humming noise, then says, “Did you figure out a book to sell me?”

“Oh—you really want me to pick out a book for you?”

Jon’s eyes, which are the only part of Jon’s face that is fully visible, narrow in what Martin thinks is a skeptical manner. “Yes. Why wouldn’t I?”

Martin shrugs, rubs the back of his neck, starts feeling how he usually feels around Jon: anxious and awkward. “I mean, I don’t—you said you’re particular about reading, and I don’t exactly know your reading history. Or what you like to read, for that matter—”

“I told you yesterday, I can read anything. Chances are, if I’ve never read the author before, I should be okay. Even if I have read the author, it might be fine, as long as it’s different enough that it doesn’t feel the same.” Jon chuckles lowly, self-consciously. “I know that probably sounds extremely high-maintenance and—well, to be frank, it probably sounds crazy, to have such hang-ups over _books_.”

“I—no! Not at all,” Martin hurries to reassure, even though it _is_ a little weird, but it’s not anywhere close to the weirdest reading habit or preference he’s heard before. “I get it. Nobody reads the same way, you know? And all of our brains are different. Just because you think about books and approach reading differently than most people doesn’t make it crazy. But, uh—you probably already know that, _ha_.” Now it’s Martin’s turn to chuckle self-consciously. He looks at the display again, if only so that he won’t have to look at Jon.

“No, I—I appreciate that. Really, Martin. It’s easy to forget that the way I think about myself isn’t indicative of what others think about me.”

And that—hm. Martin isn’t entirely sure what to make of that. It sounds weighty, as if Jon thinks badly about himself on a regular basis, as if he thinks everybody else thinks just as badly of him. It’s also startling to discover that he can find a world-famous film star relatable.

“Okay,” Martin says, turning to face Jon fully. He leans against the shelving of the display, crosses his arms over his chest, and raises an eyebrow in what he hopes is a totally casual and only slightly teasing manner in an attempt to change the subject before the mood becomes heavier than Martin is totally comfortable with getting with Jon. Standing in front of Jon, who’s literally buried in layers of clothing, Martin feels suddenly underdressed, in the outfit he’d so painstakingly chosen that morning. “Give me a general genre you’re in the mood to read right now. Narrow the options.”

Jon cocks his head to the side, as if giving the request serious consideration. As he does so, the scarf falls from his face a little, revealing a mouth pursed in thought. Which makes Martin think, entirely inappropriately, of the weird dream he’d had of Jon.

 _Not the time_ , he tells his brain sternly. Now is _not_ the time to get flustered over a very strange dream he’d had that had meant literally nothing except to be indicative of how surreal it is that he’s somehow become acquainted (even in a loose sense of the term) with Jonathan Sims.

“History?” Jon says in the way of one hazarding a guess to a very important question.

“History,” Martin repeats, only a little surprised but not letting it show in his voice. He isn’t sure what he’d been expecting Jon to say, but history catches him a little off-guard. “History. Okay. Fiction or nonfiction?”

“Uh. Fiction?” Jon blinks, uncertainly.

Martin snorts. “This isn’t a test, Jon. You don’t need to look so nervous.”

“I’m not _nervous_.”

“You certainly look it.” Martin squints his eyes and taps his chin with a finger, thinking about all the historical fiction books he’s read relatively recently that he can confidently vouch for the quality of. He doesn’t want to sell Jon a disappointing book, and he doesn’t want to sell Jon a book that lacks any sort of emotional or intellectual depth. Maybe it’s vain of him, but he wants to sell Jon a book that, when he finishes reading it, will improve his opinion of Martin. He shifts his gaze back to Jon. “How do you feel about monks?”

Jon blinks, looks taken aback. “Uh. I don’t feel strongly about them, one way or another.”

“How about fourteenth-century shenanigans? Murder? Mystery? All narrated by a naïve eighteen-year-old in medieval times?”

“Uh—yeah, sure. That sounds… interesting.”

“Doesn’t sound like anything you’ve ever read before?”

Jon snorts. “No, certainly not.”

Martin grins triumphantly then goes to the fiction shelves, where he knows he’ll find what he’s looking for: _The Name of the Rose_ , by Umberto Eco, which is one of (if not _the_ ) best historical fiction books Martin has ever read. He pulls one of the paperbacks off the shelf and turns to carry it back to Jon, only to startle when he realizes Jon has followed behind him while he wound his way through the store. He jumps in surprise, and his grip on the book slips, and it falls to the floor, where the heft of it makes a distinctive _thump_ as it collides with the wood. Martin laughs and bends over to pick it up, but Jon kneels to pick it up at the same time, and then they end up in one of those weirdly close and unintentionally intimate situations where they wind up basically nose-to-nose, their fingers brushing against each other as they both reach for the book at the same time. It happens in every stupid, clichéd romcom, and now it’s happening here, in real life, to Martin Blackwood.

They’re suspended in a frozen moment of what Martin thinks is mutual panic, like neither of them really know how to react to their sudden proximity. They stare at each other (too close, _too close_ ), and the Christmas lights make Jon look even more unreal than usual, like a sprite or a fairy come to bestow magic upon Blackwood Books. His eyes, under these lights, look green, a deep woodland green, that kind of green that Martin has never seen in real life, only in pictures online of the darkest parts of forests, where the trees’ canopies are so thick and all-encompassing that very little or no sunlight comes through to the forest floor.

Martin thinks, abruptly and totally unbidden and entirely unwelcome: _Beautiful. This man is beautiful._

Martin is panicking. Because he knows he’s being _weird_ , just staring at Jon like this. But he can’t stop, either—he feels trapped. Enthralled. Like Jon has put him under some spell. His chest feels tight in that way Martin associates with panic, and his stomach feels uneasy, and this moment feels like it’s lasted for an eternity, it feels like it’s been only seconds—

“Hey, Martin?” Sasha calls from somewhere near the front of the store, her voice carrying, snapping Martin and Jon both out of the moment. They jump apart, almost guiltily, and quickly stand back up to their full heights, both of them looking away from the other—at the shelves, at the floor, at the Christmas lights, anywhere but at each other. Jon is the one who’d picked up the book, and he’s holding it in both of his hands, long fingers wrapped around the considerable size of it.

“Yeah?” Martin calls back, following the general sound of her voice, making his way to the checkout registers, trusting that Jon is following behind him once again.

When he rounds the corner of that particular row of shelves, he sees Sasha standing by the front door, twirling the key around a finger. She raises her eyebrows when she sees that Jon is still here, just behind Martin’s shoulder, but doesn’t remark on it, which Martin is so grateful for that he thinks he could kiss her. “It’s okay to lock up, yeah?”

“Yeah,” Martin says, hurrying behind the checkout counter and entering his credentials into the computer that’s still open for operation, putting some much-needed distance between himself and Jon. “Yeah, we’re just wrapping up here. I’ll be in the office in just a moment.”

“Got it,” Sasha says, and, after locking the front door, makes her way to the back of the store, in the direction of the office.

Martin completes the transaction in silence, until he asks if Jon wants a bag, to which Jon replies in the negative. And then Martin hands Jon the book and the receipt, and there’s an awkward moment of silence where they both just stand there, neither of them saying anything, just drawing out the moment until it becomes almost uncomfortable in its awkwardness.

Finally, Martin decides he can’t take it anymore, and he blurts out, “I heard about your new movie,” at the same exact moment that Jon decides he’s also had enough and mutters, “I guess I’ll be going, then, thank you.”

“Oh,” Jon says, when he realizes what Martin has said. And something strange happens: Jon’s entire demeanor seems to shift, his spine straightening, his posture stiffening, his shoulders thrust back, his chin jutting out. Martin can’t decide if it’s a defensive position or an imperious one, but either way, Martin doesn’t entirely care for it. By the way Jon’s expression (or what Martin can see of it, underneath the hat and the scarf) seems to shutter, the way his features seem to go cold and still and unfamiliar, Martin thinks it’s probably the former. He looks more like a character he’d play in a movie, in this moment, than he looks like the Jonathan Sims that Martin has been speaking to. “Yes. I—yes.”

“I thought you were retired,” Martin says, even though his mind is screaming at him to just shut up, to drop the topic, that obviously Jon doesn’t want to talk about it. And Martin gets it—Jon doesn’t want to be reduced to his career, doesn’t want to talk about something that he very clearly doesn’t love as much as one would expect an actor—an incredibly successful one, at that—to love acting. Especially if he’s frequenting an ordinary bookstore that’s close to his so-called “retirement home,” wearing outfits that do a good job at concealing his identity, never once speaking about his job at all except to say that he’s retired from it. But, at the same time, Martin is curious, and now that he’s asked about it, it seems his tongue is running away with it.

“I am,” Jon says, in that same detached tone of voice, the way he had spoken to Martin during their first encounter, when Martin had been so put-off by his attitude.

 _Drop it, Martin_. “It doesn’t seem like you are, actually.” He grimaces internally. _Smooth. Nice one._

Jon narrows his eyes in a way that reminds Martin of a snake closing in on its prey. “I’m supposed to be. And I don’t see how it’s any of your business.”

“Well—it’s not, but I just—” Martin falters. He doesn’t want to offend, but he also doesn’t want to be blatantly lied to. “You told me you were retired, so I’m—I don’t understand, I guess.”

“Is it your responsibility to understand?”

“Well—no, but—”

“No. It’s not.”

Martin snaps his mouth shut, any argument dying on his tongue at the finality in Jon’s voice. He’s a little hurt, by how quickly Jon had just thrown up all of his walls and completely shut Martin out. He can’t blame Jon, necessarily, except that he does, a bit. He doesn’t think it’s necessary, to act cold and rude to Martin just because he asked one little unwanted question. He could’ve said he didn’t want to talk about it and move on instead of—instead of _this_. It makes Martin feel as though he doesn’t really know Jon at all—which of course he doesn’t. But this version of Jon is so completely different from the other version, the shy and nervous and stubborn and funny version that Martin had thought he was getting to know. He feels like this Jon is a completely different Jon, and it makes Martin wonder which version is the real. It makes Martin wonder which version is the actor.

“Okay. You’re right,” Martin says, trying to regain some even ground here, to cloak himself in the persona of Friendly Bookkeeper instead of Possible Friend. “Well. Have a good night, then.”

Jon stands there for a moment, just lingering, just staring at Martin, a look sparking in his eyes that is wholly indecipherable. Martin doesn’t know if he should feel nervous or frightened or something else entirely underneath this specific gaze, has no idea what thoughts are running through Jon’s mind, if they’re mean or appraising or evaluating or kind or calculating or _what_. And that, that not knowing, makes Martin even more nervous.

Eventually, Jon must come to some sort of mental conclusion with himself, because he just nods once, his features still set and hard, and picks up the book with the receipt pressed into the title page. He stuffs the book into one of the impossibly deep pockets of his coat. “I’m sure I’ll run into you again.”

And then Jon is gone, leaving behind him a gust of cold air and a very, very confused bookshop owner.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> tw for this chapter: discussion of weight particularly fatness (including feelings of shame, inadequacy, etc.)


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> once again not very happy with how this turned out rip 
> 
> apologies that these chapters have been taking over a week to post! ideally i’d like to post at least one chapter a week, but i’ve been struggling a bit figuring out where to go from here. i know where i want the story to eventually end up, but actually getting there has proven quite difficult. i think i’ve finally got some ideas though, and hopefully i’ll be able to get out chapters a little faster! (i will refrain from making any promises, but i’m aiming for at least one update a week!)
> 
> also full disclosure i have no idea what jonah magnus is supposed to look like

_Jon, Age 11_

Jon doesn’t like Florida.

He doesn’t remember England. He’d been young, when he moved from England to the States; he doesn’t remember the landscape or the geography, doesn’t remember what the weather had been like, hardly even remembers the details of the house he’d grown up in before relocating to Florida, U.S.A. All he knows is that whatever Bournemouth had been like had to have been better than _this_ , this state that is always hot and humid and miserable, this state that is crawling with strange insects and mosquitoes that bite all year long, this state that feels like a country of its own for the strange culture the people living there seem to have cultivated for themselves. Jon has never felt more alien in his entire life, and feeling alien is a terrible thing for a child to feel. He’s surrounded by people who he just does not get, who he cannot relate to: people who are wild for college football to the point that it’s basically its own personality trait; people who dress in outfits so shockingly devoid of fabric that Jon feels like he’s being invasive just by looking in their general vicinity; people who are obsessed with the terrifying and dangerous reptiles that lurk in the lakes and swamps. Jon has never seen so many guns in his life as he has in Florida, and they eat a lot of odd assortments of food that Jon doesn’t think should go together that his grandmother always insists tastes good even though Jon vehemently disagrees, and whenever he’s sat in the car with his grandmother he is appalled by the amount of times she is forced to slam on her brakes or honk her horn angrily. Everyone is either excessively aggressive or excessively kind and accommodating, and Jon never knows which version he should take upon himself at any given time, and he never knows which version to expect of others at any given time.

The people of Florida always seem to be operating on a slightly different plane of existence than Jon, and Jon just feels like he doesn’t belong. He knows he’s weird, but he’s weird in an entirely different way than everyone else who lives in Florida. He’s weird in a quiet way; Floridians are weird in the very loudest way possible.

So: no, Jon is not a fan of Florida. But there’s not much he can really do about it, so he’s stuck here for the foreseeable future.

He’s on vacation now with his grandmother, in Orlando, which is definitely better than Cocoa where he currently lives, although that’s not really saying much. In Cocoa, he’s surrounded by the same people every single day (people who don’t like him and glance at him sideways because he’s _different_ from them, soft-spoken and brown-skinned and smaller than all the other boys and with a lingering English accent and just _other_ , people with what Jon thinks are relatively narrow and limited worldviews, even for the eleven-to-eighteen-year-olds who attend his school). In Cocoa, his day-to-day routine is monotonous, exactly the same every day, unerringly boring and repetitive and uninteresting, and it fills Jon with a sort of bone-deep depression. At least in Orlando, things are different, and something is always happening, and even though everything is very bright and colorful and loud and just generally a lot—at least it’s different.

His grandmother is inside the hotel’s clubhouse playing shuffleboard or bocce ball or something similarly dull with a bunch of people she’s never met before and will never see again and who she probably dislikes, but she prefers them to Jon’s company on what is supposed to be her vacation. Jon has decided to sit outside by the pool, not because he’s interested in soaking up the sun or because he wants to swim but because his grandmother forced him to leave the hotel room and “attempt to socialize, for god’s sake, you’re not a hermit, Jonathan.”

So Jon is sitting at one of those tables with the built-in umbrella coming out of the middle of it, his chin propped up on his hand, staring at nothing in particular, a glass of cold water with rapidly-melting ice sitting in front of him, when suddenly he realizes that somebody has slid into the seat across from him. This isn’t entirely unusual; the pool area is crowded most of the time, and if Jon is sitting alone at a table with four-to-five seats, he can expect for various different people or groups of people to occupy those seats during the duration of his stay. They mostly ignore him, though, usually so caught up in their own vacation that Jon may as well not even exist.

“Excuse me, are you Jonathan?”

Jon glances sharply at the man who had taken a seat across from Jon, who apparently somehow knows Jon’s name. He’s an older man, maybe as old as Jon’s grandmother, with slightly curly hair that looks as though it had once been a kind of copper color but has since turned to gray. He’s wearing a pair of old-fashioned round-rimmed glasses and, of all things, what looks like a very nicely-tailored suit, of a burgundy color so dark that it’s almost black. It’s an absurd outfit to be wearing here, at a Florida hotel crawling with tourists clad in nothing but their brightly-colored swimsuits, so incongruous and out of place and unexpected that all Jon can do is stare at the man, a man who seems to have walked out of some nineteenth-century oil painting.

The man smiles at Jon, although there’s something off about his smile. It’s less like he’s trying to put Jon at ease and more as though he’s enjoying some sort of private joke that is somehow at Jon’s expense that he isn’t privy to. “I’ve forgotten my manners, haven’t I? Allow me to introduce myself. My name is Jonah Magnus.”

Jon blinks at the man, taken aback for several reasons. The first reason, the most obvious reason, is that the man is speaking to him in an obvious English accent, which Jon has not heard anybody speak with since he moved to America. Although Jon’s own accent has, for the most part, disappeared since he’s been in America for over half his life, it still sparks within Jon some kind of feeling of kinship: this man and I, he thinks, come from the same place.

The second reason he’s taken aback is because he definitely recognizes the name. It takes him a moment to place it, but then he remembers who, exactly, Jonah Magnus is: a film director and producer who has released a handful of relatively low-budget but commercially successful horror and thriller films. Jon has never actually watched a Jonah Magnus movie because he doesn’t really watch movies a lot in general, and also all of Magnus’s films are rated R or at least PG-13, neither of which Jon is old enough to see on his own.

Jon is immediately suspicious. “Are you really?”

The man claiming to be Jonah Magnus looks amused. “Would you like to see my business card? Go use one of the hotel’s computers to do an internet search and compare photographs? I’m not sure what else I can do to convince you, but I assure you, I am who I say I am.”

“Okay…” Jon says, trailing off, not entirely convinced but unsure why he would lie to Jon, in particular, about this very specific thing. He sees no reason why someone would pretend to be Jonah Magnus, of all people, in order to talk to an eleven-year-old. That seems a very strange method and a very strange prerogative.

He feels like maybe he should be a little intimidated, speaking to a successful film director, but he’s too confused and skeptical to feel much of anything except vaguely bewildered and disoriented. Also, he doesn’t really care enough about films to feel very awed in the presence of this man who otherwise means nothing to Jon.

“How do you know my name?” he asks.

The man smiles again, but it’s a variation of the same smile as before, as if it’s more for Magnus’s benefit than it is Jon’s. “I was inside speaking with your grandmother. Lovely woman.”

“I suppose. Why were you talking to her?”

“Well. I’ve been asking around, you see. Trying to find some new, undiscovered talent. My movies are low-budget at the moment, when measured against the budgets of other films, so I don’t have the money to spend on famous talent. A blessing and a curse, that. It’s a hassle to find new actors, but it’s also a pleasantly surprising endeavor, to discover hidden gems of people.”

“Uh-huh,” Jon says, rapidly losing interest in the conversation because he doesn’t care for films nor the inner workings or films, and he doesn’t see what any of this has to do with him or his grandmother.

“I guess you could say I’m here scouting for talent. Florida is one of those places full of people who’d love to make it big.”

“If you say so.” The longer this conversation continues, the more Jon wishes he could be left alone.

“Your grandmother recognized me, and we got to chatting. She told me to ask after you, to see if you’d be interested.”

Jon blinks. “Interested in what?”

The man’s smile falters just the slightest bit, his brow furrowing, as if in confusion. “Why, interested in acting, of course.”

Jon continues blinking, feeling as though he can’t quite keep up with the conversation. _Him_? Interested in _acting_? Vouched for by his _grandmother_? None of those things seem to make any sense, not separately, not all put together, not in any context. He has never once expressed an interest in acting to his grandmother, has never even acted before. “I…” He trails off again, utterly unsure what to say in response to that.

“There’s no need to be shy, of course,” Magnus says, his smile fixing itself once again. “In fact, I find you very intriguing, if you don’t mind my saying. Interesting to look at, is what I mean, which is a very, very good thing for an actor to be, especially a child actor. If you don’t mind my saying so, you’re very… what’s the word I’m looking for here? _Racially ambiguous_ , I suppose. A lot of kids out there would identify with you, I think—Asians, Mexicans, blacks. You’ve got a very unique look.”

Jon hasn’t often been speechless in his life, but he feels totally speechless now. He isn’t sure if he’s being complimented or insulted, but either way, this assessment of his physical appearance is deeply unsettling to hear, at eleven years old. “I’m not an actor,” is what he ends up saying because he feels that this is rather important to point out.

Magnus makes a gesture like swatting a particularly annoying fly out of the air. “You’re young enough to learn. It’s easy to shape someone who looks the part into an actor, whereas it’s rather impossible to change another person’s mold, no matter how talented they may be. Half of acting is the look of the thing, you understand.”

“So—you want me to act for you? You want to teach me to act?”

The smile shifts into something vaguely self-satisfied. “Precisely. At the very least, I want to see if I can make something of you. If I can turn you into something great.”

Jon thinks the very notion is an absurd one, but he doesn’t say so. “What exactly did my grandmother say to you to make you want to… um, _scout_ me?”

Magnus’s features change until they take on the appearance of somberness, which startles Jon. “Well, if I may be frank with you, Jonathan, I did quite get the impression that she would have said anything to be rid of you.”

“I—what?”

“Yes, well, you see,” he continues, adopting an almost confidential tone imbued with a gravity that starts to frighten Jon, “she tried very eagerly to convince me you’d be the perfect fit for me, despite not actually having any acting experience. I couldn’t help but feel as though she wanted to get you off of her hands. Rid herself of the responsibility.” His expression takes on an almost pitying expression, which Jon does not care for at all. “I think you deserve better than that, Jonathan. You deserve to be with someone who will value you and help you to discover your true talent. I can take you in, train you, teach you, raise you up into a successful young man. I have a feeling that if you stay with your grandmother, you’ll waste your life; you’ll be devoid of the encouragement and the positive reinforcement necessary to channel your energy into cultivating whatever talents you have.”

A sort of numbness has stolen over Jon, as Magnus makes this little speech. Because, yes, he had known of course that he’s something of a burden on his grandmother, that she’s not exactly thrilled to be raising him as an old woman, that he’s not an easy child to raise even if she _had_ been more open to the idea. He knows she’s still hurting about her son’s death, knows that seeing Jon every single day serves as a bitter reminder of the thing that she’s lost. He knows that he’s little more than an unwanted responsibility to her: of course she loves him, he knows she does, but he thinks her resentment is larger than her love, even if she would never admit it.

But it’s still shocking to hear all of this said out loud directly to him, to hear all of his anxieties concerning his relationship with his grandmother confirmed so bluntly. And it’s also stunning to hear the conclusions Magnus has come to, off of the very little information he’s gathered from Jon’s grandmother: that Jon will waste his life, that he won’t matter, that he won’t be successful in any meaningful way. These are fears that Jon isn’t even aware he harbors until Magnus says them, and then he realizes: _I don’t want that_. He doesn’t want to lack the things he needs to become successful. He doesn’t want to become somehow incapable of achieving his potential just because he isn’t fostered in a favorable environment.

(Jon doesn’t know at the time, and he never quite figures out, the extent of Jonah Magnus’s manipulation, from that very first conversation. He never understands the seeds that Magnus had planted from the start, never realizes that most of what Magnus told him concerning his grandmother had been exaggerated to fit his own purposes. From the very beginning, Magnus had sunk his teeth in, had gotten under his skin, had been able to discern the exact methods to manipulate Jon in the most effective and thorough way possible. Things might have turned out very differently, if Jon had realized this at eleven years old. Or things might have turned out exactly the same.)

“I can help you,” Magnus says. “I can turn you into the best possible version of yourself. I would _like_ to do that. It wouldn’t be burdensome or taxing on me; it’d be rewarding, for the both of us. And the best part is, I already have your grandmother’s permission.” Magnus aims a winning smile at Jon, either ignoring or oblivious to the sudden emotional turmoil going on in his own head. “So what do you say, Jonathan? Would you like to work me? Would you like to become something great?”

There are some decisions you make in life that you can never take back, some paths you walk down that are irreversible in ways that you cannot possibly foresee at the time that the decision itself is made. Sometimes the consequences of these actions are good ones, rewarding and fortunate. More often than not (at least in the case of Jonathan Sims), they are poor choices with even worse consequences: his life has been an unlucky one, and the decisions he’s made have historically produced unfavorable results.

Most of the early bad luck in his life was entirely out of his control (take, for example, his parents dying, which forced him to relocate to that dreadful town in Florida). But Jon is nothing if not accountable for his own actions, and the decision he makes when he’s eleven years old, the decision that, in his mind, sets him on his future path of terrible choices and ill fortune and pain, the decision from which all his misfortune and self-destruction stems—that choice is entirely his own. He only wishes he knew then what he will later learn in his life. He only wishes he knew then the consequences of what had seemed, by all means, the logical and correct and even righteous decision to make.

But on that sunny summer day at a touristy hotel in Orlando, Florida, at eleven years old, Jon knows nothing of his future. All he knows is his present, and the projected future Magnus has painted for him if he stays with his grandmother instead of allowing himself to be trained as an actor under Magnus.

So when Magnus asks him if he would like to join him, Jon gives it very little thought because the answer seems an obvious one. Continue to burden his grandmother or stay with someone who actually wants him there? Live an unfulfilling life or turn himself into someone with a potentially bright future? The choice doesn’t seem like much of a choice at all.

“Yes,” Jon says, although there’s still a lingering uncertainty in his voice, something in his mind telling him that he isn’t thinking this through as much as he probably should. “Yes, I think I would like that very much.”

***

_Present_

Jon has decided, in the weeks leading up to Christmas, to lay off Blackwood Books.

It is, he’s realized, very invasive of him to continuously show up at Martin’s place of work and have conversations with him that very obviously annoy, confound, or frustrate Martin. And it’s also incredibly unfair, he thinks, that he shows up at Martin’s _place of work_ , a place in which Martin is basically forced to be nice to him since Jon is technically a customer, a place in which Martin can’t really escape the situation if he wants to except to hope that Jon leaves. And while Jon doesn’t really think what he’s been doing with Martin could be considered “flirting,” he still thinks his behavior has been a little inappropriate.

So, he’s choosing not to go back until after the new year. He will go back because he finds Martin fascinating and somehow irresistible, but he doesn’t want to come off as desperate or, worse, as though he’s harassing Martin. He’d much rather stay away and drive himself mad thinking of Martin than annoy him to the point of harassment (and that in itself is very strange, that Jon finds himself thinking of Martin so often; he can’t honestly recall the last time he’d thought of one person with this much interest and intent for longer than a few days at a time, but Jon’s mind is constantly straying back to Martin, the kind bookshop owner who isn’t afraid to speak his mind and who writes in his books and who seems to have some sort of weird insecurities that Jon wants to learn more about and who has a strange sway over Jon that Jon doesn’t at all understand and that is aggravating and irritating and unnerving to consider too closely, so he doesn’t).

He spends Christmas with Daisy and Basira, who gift him with a new glass piece they’d crafted, a decorative piece of a surrealistic skull blossoming with surrealistic flowers, the shape and texture of the glass made from wax and plaster and silica and aventurine glass, colored light green and dark blue and bright yellow, with the glittery red goldstone running through the piece. It’s one of the stranger pieces they’ve made, one that’s harder to tell exactly what it’s supposed to be without close studying, one that is much more artistic than practical, but all of that makes Jon love it the more. They made it for him, thought about him through every step of the process, tried to create something that he would find beautiful and intriguing, and he certainly does.

“The concept is new beginnings,” Basira tells him as he turns it around in the light, trying to examine it closer, to watch the way all the different pieces of glass catch the light. “Beauty from death. Starting over, creating new life.”

“Very subtle,” Jon says, since it’s impossible to ignore the heavy implication in her words.

Jon gifted Basira with a luxury air purifier and Daisy with a Theragun, and he’s also sent a king-sized customizable couples’ mattress to their house, since they often complain about their differing sleep preferences.

After receiving their gifts, they gather in the living room, where they put on a channel playing a Christmas movie marathon that none of them really pay much attention to (currently: _Home Alone_ ), each of them working on their second or third spiked eggnog, and just… hang out. They talk, they laugh, they celebrate the holiday in their own way. Jon had never been big on Christmas; his grandmother had never cared to celebrate, and it had never even been worth mentioning when he’d been with Magnus. Neither Daisy nor Basira have any living family to celebrate with, and Basira had never celebrated Christmas at all growing up, so the three of them have created their own holiday traditions that are not entirely different from that of many peoples’ Christmas traditions.

Which makes Jon wonder: how does Martin celebrate the Christmas holiday? He’d already told Jon he has a get-together with his employees, some sort of Christmas party maybe, but he wonders who he’s with on the day itself. He wonders if he travels, or if he has family or friends travelling to him. He wonders if he decorates his home the way he decorates his bookstore, with gratuitous lights and a Christmas tree and excessively shiny decorations strewn on every available surface. He wonders if he cooks a Christmas dinner or if he orders out from somewhere. He wonders what kinds of presents he buys, what kind he receives.

“What’s with you?” Daisy asks, after she catches Jon zoning out for about the fourth time. “You look like you’re somewhere else.”

“Oh,” Jon says, blinking at her as he tries to reorient himself. “No, I just—yeah, I’m a little preoccupied, I suppose.”

She narrows her eyes at him. Next to her, Basira does the same. For a moment, Jon feels as if he’s under a microscope that Daisy and Basira are peering into, and he’s annoyed that they can both see every little fragment of him while all he can see is their eye scrutinizing him. They know him too well—somehow, they know him too well, and Jon wishes briefly that they didn’t.

“Is this about your new movie?” Basira asks, taking a sip of her eggnog.

The question completely throws Jon off. It’s not at all what he had been thinking about—but, keeping in mind that neither of them know about his little meetings with Martin, he supposes he’s not really surprised that she’s jumped to this conclusion. What else, after all, could be preoccupying his mind so efficiently on Christmas day? “My—what?”

“It is, isn’t it?” Daisy asks, setting her own glass aside. “What’s the stupid thing called again? _Love Bombers_?”

“ _Love Bombing_ ,” Jon says, although, truthfully, the last thing Jon wants to talk about is his upcoming to-be-released film. It probably won’t hit the cinemas for close to a year still, at which point he knows he’ll be forced to attend screenings and events with Magnus and the rest of the cast and crew, but he doesn’t want to have to think about any of that until he literally has no choice but to do so. Between now and the release of the trailer, at the very least, he wants to dedicate absolutely none of his time to thinking about _Love Bombing_ or any of the other people involved with it.

“I still can’t believe you ran off to London to film that movie without even telling us,” Basira says. “After your official retirement, too. Are you gonna get roped into doing more movies?”

Jon sighs. “I don’t know. I hope not, but I don’t know.”

“I don’t understand why you can’t just say no. Why do you have to keep going back to Magnus every time Elias calls you up and tells you to?”

“Basira, we’ve talked about this before—”

“No, we haven’t. Not really. Daisy and I ask you questions, and you give some annoyingly vague answers, and then you say you don’t want to talk about it, and we move on. That’s not a conversation, Jon. That’s evasion.”

“Well, I _don’t_ want to talk about it.”

“Is he hurting you?” Daisy asks, as if Jon hadn’t said anything. “Still? Is he—are _they_ still hurting you?”

“They don’t hurt me—”

“Don’t do that. Don’t lie to us, Jon. We know they hurt you. So don’t lie to us about it.”

“There’s no way you can know that—”

“Except that we _do_ ,” Basira says. “Stop treating us like we’re idiots. We see the way you act when you get back from filming something, scared and paranoid and like you’re always ready to be attacked by something. Why would you act that way if you weren’t being hurt? I don’t know if it’s physical or purely mental or what, but they’re doing _something_ to you. And I think they’re holding something over your head; they’re blackmailing you or threatening you or _something_ to keep you coming back, even when you’re supposed to be retired. Tell me I’m wrong.”

“You’re wrong,” Jon says, but it sounds false and weak, even to his own ears. “Just leave it alone. You don’t understand—”

“Because you refuse to explain it to us!” Daisy nearly shouts. “I mean, _fuck_ , Jon! We’re _trying_ to be good friends to you, we’re _trying_ to care about you, but you make it so fucking hard!”

“Yes, well, I never asked you to care about me. That’s on you.”

“That’s on _me_?” Daisy barks out a laugh that’s half angry and half incredulous. “That’s on _me_. Did you hear that, Basira? That’s _on me_ that Jon is an asshole friend.”

“Daisy,” Basira starts, in the tone of voice she uses when she tries to talk Daisy down from her frequent bouts of anger, but Jon doesn’t let her finish because now he’s frustrated as well, even though he knows it’s unfair of him. Daisy has done nothing wrong, not really, and Jon is well-accustomed to her anger to know how to handle it when it appears, but he had been entirely unprepared for this conversation, totally caught off-guard, and that’s when his own emotions become self-destructive and reckless and volatile. Daisy’s cruelty inspires his own when he’s not prepared for it, when he’s not in the right headspace to be on the receiving end of it.

So instead of letting Basira guide the conversation back into the realm of mutual respect (which is always a feat in itself, considering Basira is usually just as upset as Daisy is when it comes to Jon’s more reckless habits combined with his inability to speak about them), he scoffs derisively and says, “It’s not like _you’ve_ never hurt me before, Daisy.”

As soon as Jon says it, he wants to take it back. Daisy makes a face like she’s been slapped before reconfiguring her features into a hard mask of indignation and anger. “That was different.”

Still, Jon can’t help himself from asking: “Was it, though?”

“ _Jon_ ,” Basira hisses at him, shooting him a glare. “You’re being unfair.”

“No,” Daisy says, her voice taut. “No, it’s fine. I’ll just go. Basira, I’ll see you at home later, yeah?”

“I’ll come with—”

“No. I want to be alone for a bit. Don’t let me ruin your fun.” She walks to the front door and angrily snatches her coat off of the coatrack in the foyer, shrugging into it as quickly as possible, not even doing up the buttons. “Merry fucking Christmas,” she mutters, and then she opens the door and leaves a heavy silence between Jon and Basira in her wake.

Jon wishes he had said something to her, apologized, taken back what he had said, because Basira was right: he _was_ being unfair. But he thinks trying to apologize now, while she’s still mad, will only make things worse, will result in a larger argument that could be avoided entirely by Jon simply waiting until she’s calmed down to talk to her again.

So Jon lets her leave.

“You really _are_ an asshole, you know,” Basira says into the silence.

Jon sighs. “I know. I’ll talk to her; I’ll apologize. I just—I wish you guys wouldn’t hound me so much about something I obviously don’t want to talk about.”

“Maybe you _should_ talk about it, though. Maybe not to me, maybe not to Daisy, but you need to talk to _someone_.”

Jon snorts. “Easier said than done.”

“I never said it would be easy. But it’s probably what you need. I mean, at risk of sounding tactless, I think it’s a fair assessment to say that you’ve got some repression issues that I don’t even want to think about touching.”

“Are you suggesting I go to therapy?”

“Well. You’ve certainly got the money for it.”

Jon rolls his eyes. “I don’t want to go to therapy, Basira.”

“It’s not about _want_. It’s about need.”

“Okay. I don’t _need_ to go to therapy. What, you want me to talk to a stranger about all of the things that are wrong with me so that they can tell me that there are, indeed, things that are wrong with me? You want me to bare my wretched soul to someone who only cares because they’re being paid to care? You want me to—to get treated like an experiment in mental health and then be given arbitrary medication?” The very thought is enough to make Jon feel nauseous.

“I don’t think any of that is what therapy actually is. You have a very twentieth-century stance on therapy.”

“Whatever. It’s not something I’m interested in at the moment.”

“Whatever,” Basira mimics. “I just think—”

“And, anyway,” Jon interrupts because he desperately wants to change the subject, “I wasn’t even thinking about the movie at all. I was thinking about something else.”

Basira raises a skeptical brow. “Yeah? What were you thinking about, then?”

“Well.” Now that Jon’s said it, he’s unsure if this avenue of conversation will actually be preferable to the previous one. “Um.”

“Oh, my god.” Basira sits up straight, nearly knocking over her glass of eggnog in the process.

“Whoa, careful there, Basira.”

“Oh, my god, Jon,” Basira says again, completely ignoring him. “You’re blushing!”

“What?” Jon asks, incredulously. “No, I’m not!”

“You are! Oh, my god. Are you seeing someone?”

“What?” Jon repeats, like an idiot. “No—no, absolutely not!”

“Then why are you blushing? What were you thinking about?”

“I—Jesus, Basira, nothing, forget it.”

“No, you have to tell me now! You have a crush on someone, don’t you?”

Jon wrinkles his nose in distaste. “Don’t call it a _crush_ , that sounds so juvenile.”

“So it _is_ a crush! Who’s the lucky lady? Or—guy, or whatever.”

Jon sighs, pinches the bridge of his nose between his forefinger and his thumb. _Out of the frying pan and into the fire_ , he thinks, _or whatever that damn saying is_. “He’s a guy.”

“Oh, Jesus. I can’t wait to see Daisy’s face when I tell her the reason you kept zoning out was because you were mooning over some _guy_. She’s going to be so pissed that she got pissed. What’s his name?”

“Well, first, let me just say that he’s not—I’m just _interested_ in him, okay? There’s nothing there.”

“Yet.”

“Right, sure, okay, _yet_. And I don’t have the first clue how he feels about me, and I don’t even know if he’s into guys, and I don’t really—I don’t actually know anything about him, except that he owns a bookshop.”

Basira stares at him disbelievingly. “You have a crush on a _bookshop owner_?”

“Stop calling it a crush,” Jon says, a little grumpy. “And—yeah? Sure. Is that—do you have thoughts about that?”

Basira shakes her head, shrugs. “It’s just very, um. Mundane?”

“I think that’s part of the reason why I like him, to be honest,” Jon admits. “He’s not—you know, he’s not a celebrity or anything like that. He doesn’t have an excessively wealthy clientele. He’s just—he’s a bookshop owner. A nice, ordinary man who owns a bookshop.”

Now it’s Basira’s turn to roll her eyes. “Jon, you must’ve met at least a thousand nice, ordinary people in your lifetime.”

“Yeah, well. Martin is different.”

“Oh, _Martin_ , is it?” Basira grins. “ _Martin_ is different. Tell me, why is _Martin_ so different?”

“Will you stop saying his name like that?” Jon asks, feeling his flush deepening. “He’s just—I don’t know what it is. I’m just drawn to him, in a way I haven’t ever been to anybody else before. There’s just something about him, and I don’t know what it is, but it’s like—it’s like I want to find out.”

“Oh. Oh, Jon. You’ve got it _bad_.”

“I have not!” Jon protests, all mock-offense. “It’s just a little _interest_ , is all. God, this is why I don’t talk to you about these things.”

“No, you don’t talk to me about these things because you don’t typically feel these things.”

Jon shrugs, petulantly. “Sure.”

“So? Why haven’t you—I don’t know, asked him out?”

“Because the only times I’ve ever spoken to him have been at his bookshop, while he’s working. And I’m pretty sure there’s some unwritten rule out there about propositioning someone while they’re working.”

Basira looks at Jon like she thinks he’s an idiot. “Do you have any way of contacting him outside of his job?”

“Um. No.”

“Then how else are you supposed to ask him out?”

“I don’t want to be some creep. I don’t want to make him uncomfortable.”

“Just tell him, you know. ‘Hey, I always see you while you’re at work. Would you like to hang out outside of your job? Totally cool if not, just thought I’d shoot my shot.’ Something like that. It doesn’t sound like you’ll have an opportunity to ask him when he’s _not_ working.”

Jon sighs again, runs his fingers through his hair, tugs at it. “I don’t know, Basira. It’s been so long since I’ve been with anyone, and I’m afraid—I guess I’m afraid I’ve forgotten how. How to be vulnerable with someone in that way. Let’s say that by some miracle, Martin is interested in me too, and we start going on dates or whatever. I’m afraid that I’ll mess everything up by—well, you know. By being me.”

“Well. That’s a definite possibility,” Basira says. “But you’ll never know if you don’t try, you know? It might not work out, but it also _might_. It’s up to you to decide if that’s a risk worth taking.”

“Yeah, I suppose you’re right. I’ll think about it.”

“And keep me updated, yeah?

Jon makes a noncommittal noise in the back of his throat, which makes Basira roll her eyes, which makes Jon chuckle.

Basira doesn’t stay for much longer, and Jon doesn’t want to keep her for too long: they’re both worried about Daisy. So Basira orders a Lyft and says her goodbyes and wishes Jon a merry Christmas, and then he’s alone for the rest of the evening. He takes a quick shower and then searches for the best place to put his new glass piece (he decides to put it, for now, on a table in one of the halls). He cleans up the living room, washes the dishes, folds the blankets, repositions the pillows that had been knocked out of place, straightens up all the odds and ends.

He considers reading some of the book Martin had sold to him. It's still sitting there, on his bedside table, unopened but for the title page, entirely unread. For some reason, Jon finds himself hesitant to start reading it. He can't really say why; maybe because he's afraid he won't like it as much as Martin clearly does. Maybe because he's nervous it'll be too out of his depth, something that he won't entirely get, something heavy and pretentious and obviously written in a way that makes it clear that the author thinks he's smarter than everyone else.

Maybe it's because it's not the sort of book Jon had wanted at all. Maybe it's because all he really wants is to curl up with an annotated book of Martin's—any book, any at all—and get lost in those interesting thoughts of his.

Jon considers reading, even picks up the book and flips to the first page, but he's tired, and he's not much in the mood to read, so instead he decides to go to bed early, as a Christmas gift to himself.

He doesn’t dream that night, but for the first time in a long time, he’s able to stay asleep for a full night without any nightmares, either.


End file.
